Seven slabs of German-made steel have become Qatar’s latest statement of cultural ambition. Richard Serra’s sculpture “7,” the artist’s first public commission in the Middle East and the tallest of his vertical works, stands as a sobering presence at the edge of a new park between the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art and, across Doha Bay, the ever-growing skyline of shiny, modern high-rises, likened by one onlooker to a group of people dressing for an 1980s disco night.

The 24-meter-, or 80-foot-, high sculpture is seen as representing “a beacon for the arts in Qatar,” said Sheika Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the 28-year-old daughter of the emir of Qatar, the head of the Qatar Museums Authority and a relentlessly hands-on force at the helm of Doha’s art scene. At the unveiling in December, Mr. Serra made reference to that drive when he said his large-scale sculptures could “only be built where there is faith and values to support the enormous efforts of such an undertaking.”

In recent years, art has become an international attention-grabber for Qatar, to the point where the rapid building of museums, invitations to big-name artists and purchases of major Western artworks have, some in the art world say, overshadowed the sovereign state’s grassroots intention: to explore its cultural heritage, nomadic history and develop deeper bonds with the Middle East and beyond.

“Celebrating Qatar’s role as a crossroads over the years is important to us,” said Edward J. Dolman, a former chairman of Christie’s whom Sheika Mayassa hired last year to become executive director of her office and sit on the board of trustees of the Qatar Museums Authority. “The overarching aim is to create museums that promote artistic dialogue and get people to think about the way Islamic art is not just interwoven into the history of the region, but that of the world.”

At the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, a first such bond is being re-established between Qatar and China, for centuries Silk Road trading partners, through Cai Guo-Qiang’s exhibition “Saraab” (Mirage). The exhibition opened on Dec. 5 with the staging of one of Mr. Cai’s trademark gunpowder explosion events, “Black Ceremony,” in the nearby desert. The show, which runs through May 26, includes 17 commissioned works by Mr. Cai, which he created with help from local Qataris, into which he incorporated traditional Qatari houri boats and local fabrics.