Deep in the Qatari desert, security forces are spending a lonely time 24 hours guarding one of the world’s most isolated works of art, created by renowned US sculptor Richard Serra.

“On a busy day, we can reach 100 people,” said a security guard overseeing the four vertical steel plates — each more than 14 meters (46 feet) tall — that make up Serra’s “east-west/west-east.”

But when temperatures soar above 50 degrees Celsius in the Brouq nature reserve, visitors are rare.

Even Qatar’s art chiefs say getting to the work, which spans more than a kilometer, is part of the challenge of appreciating Serra’s installation, one of the Gulf state’s big art purchases of 2014.

Qatar is preparing to welcome more than a million people to the World Cup, which begins on November 20.

But few ads mention “east-west/west-east”, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Doha.

Four-wheel drive is required to reach the elaborately rusted steel plates, and hardly any road signs point the way.

Firas al-Obisi, a Syrian who has been working as a tourist guide in Qatar since 2006, said his car got stuck when a sudden rainstorm turned the roads to mud as he was taking a Chinese tourist to the site.

“Every time I tried to get out, it only got worse. The sand was like glue,” he said.

It took four hours to pull his truck out after one of the three vehicles helping him also got stuck.

“The artwork begins with the journey,” said Abdulrahman al-Ishaq, director of public art at Qatar Museums, likening it to “a pilgrimage.”

“You really have to be aware that you’re going to see Richard Serra that day,” he said. “And then when you get off the road and go into the desert, you have to find it.”

Serra, 83, is one of America’s best-known living sculptors.

His works often arrive by the ton – one that weighs more than a passenger plane – and can be found around the world, from New York museums to landscapes in Iceland and New Zealand.

Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Chairwoman of Qatar Museums and sister of the Emir, asked Serra to take on the desert mission after completing “7”, a work more than 24 meters tall overlooking Doha Harbour would have.

The 24/7 “east-west/west-east” vigil with guards and cameras began after vandal strikes several times in 2020 and 2021.

Qatar boasts itself as one of the crime-free places on earth, and authorities made at least six arrests.

“Vandalism isn’t really an issue in Doha, but we see it mostly with Richard Serra because if someone writes on it, a second person thinks it’s okay to write on it,” said Ishaq of Qatar Museums.

“Ideally, the art should not be touched—not even preserved—because it is expected to rust over time. But if it is destroyed, we must purify it,” he said.

This is “expensive” and “disrupts the artwork’s natural process as it decays,” he added.

Serra’s artworks are an extreme example of Qatar’s huge public art investment, which has accelerated as Doha prepares for the World Cup.

More than 40 works were displayed in parks, roadsides and near tourist attractions.

They range from a 21-metre-tall polished-metal dugong by American pop artist Jeff Koons to a larger-than-life blue rooster by German sculptor Katharina Fritsch on display at an official FIFA hotel.

It’s not just the artworks, but Doha that’s on display, Ishaq noted. “This is an opportunity for us to be in the spotlight.”