Although most Qatari curators and museum directors are conservative when building their collections, there are attempts to push the envelope with more contemporary and sometimes edgy art exhibitions in government-run museums, private art galleries and even in public places.

At the end of 2011, an 80-foot-high sculpture by the American artist Richard Serra was installed in a newly designed park next to the The Museum of Islamic Art. In spring 2013, the French-Tunisian street artist El Seed, with permission of the authorities, spray-painted 52 graffiti-like panels on the walls of an auto tunnel on the Salwa Road. And last fall, Sheikha al-Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority and 30-year-old sister of Qatar’s new emir, welcomed a controversial group of sculptures by British artist Damien Hirst called The Miraculous Journey. The artwork is displayed outside the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a nearly completed steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women’s and children’s health. Despite objections from conservative Qataris, the artwork was not dismantled. All three commissioned works have the blessing of Sheikha al Mayassa and are part of Doha’s multimillion-dollar public arts project introducing Qatari citizens to art that is entirely outside of their culture.