Ugo Rondinone, Doha Mountains, Doha

Ugo Rondinone’s Doha Mountains are at the intersection of geological formations and abstract compositions; they are made of vertically stacked rocks painted in various Day-Glo colors. Inspired by natural Hoodoos (spires or pyramids of rocks) and the art of meditative balancing on rocks – which has existed in all cultures for thousands of years – their simplified modularity and colors also evoke the formal essence of minimalist art.

A duality is present at the center of the artist’s practice: that of the natural and the artificial, the eternal and the temporal. In each iteration, the sculptures seem to balance between monumentality and collapse – seeming to defy gravity in their shaky formations, yet depending on it, leaning like unstable pillars on the landscape.

Commissioned by the Qatar Museum