{"id":4944,"date":"2013-10-07T18:40:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T01:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=4944"},"modified":"2013-10-09T18:44:39","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T01:44:39","slug":"hirst-births-giant-bronze-baby-in-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/07\/hirst-births-giant-bronze-baby-in-qatar\/","title":{"rendered":"Hirst Births Giant Bronze Baby In Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The NY Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Damien Hirst\u2019s Anatomical Sculptures Have Their Debut<\/h1>\n

By CAROL VOGEL<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

DOHA, Qatar \u2014 For weeks, 14 giant balloons had been mysteriously parked in front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a hulking steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women\u2019s and children\u2019s health that is to open on the outskirts of this city in 2015.<\/p>\n

At 7 on Monday evening, to the amplified sound of a beating heart, members of Qatar\u2019s royal family, government officials and local artists watched as each balloon, bathed in purple light, opened like a giant flower to reveal an unusually provocative public artwork. Called \u201cThe Miraculous Journey,\u201d it consists of 14 monumental bronze sculptures, by the British artist Damien Hirst, chronicling the gestation of a fetus inside a uterus, from conception to birth, ending with a statue of a 46-foot-tall anatomically correct baby boy.<\/p>\n

Even for a Persian Gulf country that is aggressively buying its way into modernity, this installation takes official acceptance of Western art to a new level. Local women still adhere to centuries-old Islamic traditions, wearing the abaya, a long cloak, and niqab, or face covering; images of women are routinely censored in books and magazines. Even the representation of the human form is unusual.<\/p>\n

To commission such an audacious work of art is considered a particularly bold move for Sheikha al Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, 30, chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority and a sister to the new emir of this oil- and gas-rich state. The sculptures are reported to have cost $20 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have something like this is less daring than having a lot of nudity,\u201d said the sheikha, interviewed on Monday morning in her office at the Museum of Islamic Art, a modern, sun-filled space with sweeping views of the gulf. \u201cThere is a verse in the Koran about the miracle of birth,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is not against our culture or our religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The NY Times Damien Hirst\u2019s Anatomical Sculptures Have Their Debut By CAROL VOGEL DOHA, Qatar \u2014 For weeks, 14 giant balloons had been mysteriously parked in front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a hulking steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women\u2019s and children\u2019s health that is to open on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}