Qatar’s royal family is making Doha, the country’s capital, into an international art hub for renowned artists from all over the world as it sets the stage for the World Cup in 2022, but local artists are being weeded out in the process.

“Investing millions in art venues and art work isn’t enough,” said Ninar Esber, a Lebanese artist represented by the Anne de Villepoix Gallery of Paris. What is missing, she said, are the basics, like freedom of speech. The art scene “is an empty golden shell,” she said, adding, “It glitters from the outside, but from the inside, it is empty.”

“Maybe with time things will change,” she said. “I hope so, but I don’t believe that art changes societies. Laws and secular governments do.”

Critics of the Qatar royal family say it is behaving as a facilitator of the international art scene while at the same time using it for self-promotion. And rather than letting the art scene in Qatar grow naturally according to the needs of its people to express themselves, these observers say, the country is handpicking artists who are politically neutral.

In such an atmosphere, most local artists do not stand much of a chance.

“It’s hard to survive as an artist in a world where all that’s important is fame and image,” said a Bahraini contemporary artist who declined to be named for fear of being deported. “And I am not the only one who has come back without a lead. It’s the way it is in Qatar now.”

“There is no freedom of expression in Qatar and yet there is so much to be disclosed about its problems and injustices,” he added. “As an artist I should be able to share my views on these through my work.”

But because of the constant fear of being punished, speaking out plainly against the royal family is not a risk worth taking, he said.

The Qatar Museums Authority, headed by Sheika Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, a daughter of the emir, is the governing authority of most art projects in the country.

Jean-Paul Engelen, director of public art programs at the museums authority, said that despite what some view as a lack of freedom of expression in Qatar, the art scene in Doha is very rich.

“I suddenly find myself talking to people from all over the world, about the conscious and unconscious at the Bourgeois exhibition, for example,” he said. “We are trying to show a point of view, not trying to upset the existing one. It is possible to provoke conversation without being insulting.”

There appears to be a high demand for the type of art scene that Qatar is developing. The West is in financial decline and opportunities for artists like those offered in the Gulf are scarce. Arts organizations and artists across the West are struggling because of cuts in arts funding.

In this context, Qatar has taken up a key role in shaping the world of art.

Takashi Murakami, the Japanese artist, said in an interview that doing an exhibition in Doha was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize a large-scale project that he could not have done anywhere else due to the lack of investment. His exhibition, Ego-Murakami, is taking place at Al Riwaq, a purpose-built venue that is part of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.

Many agree with Mr. Murakami’s view that Qatar is a positive venue for art. But observers also say that loosening regulations on freedom of expression and promoting local contemporary artists are equally important. For Qatar’s burgeoning art scene to be a lasting success, observers say, it must create a vibrant art community among its residents, be they Qatari, Indian, British or Filipino.

“A thriving museum system relies on the development of cultural infrastructure, such as schools and residences, as well as interactions with local artists,” said Wassan Al-Khudhairi, director of the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha.

But the Qatar art scene may be partly stymied by a disconnect with its local audience. At the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Qatar Museum Authority’s gallery in Kartara, locals interviewed about the show said they failed to understand it, and one even said: “We find it ugly. We don’t understand why so many people come to see this work.”

A member of the local press corps who did not want to be named because of fears that he would be deported for his views, said the royal family did not “care about locals seeing the art shows,” adding, “All they care about is being seen oversees.”

In addition, the Qatar news media are rarely invited to cover high-profile art exhibitions. A member of the marketing team for the Qatar Museum Authority said in an interview that it was encouraged to invite only the best-known foreign press outlets to the shows.

The same appears to apply in the world of film, said a person at the Doha Film Institute, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. The person was surprised by the lack of Arab celebrities at the annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival, for instance.

“When I got to know some of the Gulf’s most famous film celebrities, I asked them why they didn’t attend,” the person said. “They just shrugged and told me, ‘We never get invited to those kinds of events,’ and when I dug a bit deeper I understood that the aim isn’t to share Arab heritage with one another, but to show it off to the rest of the world.”

Still, however much Qatar’s art scene is seen as a marketing tool, some credit must be given to the royal family for its dedication to the cause, observers say.

Since the 2008 opening of the Museum of Islamic Art, designed by I.M. Pei, the country has held the spotlight as a major hub for the arts. Other venues playing a major role are the Arab Museum of Modern Art, the Katara Cultural Village and the National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel, as well as smaller galleries, like Al Markhiya, showcasing Arab contemporary art in Souq al Waqif.

Sheika al-Mayassa, addressing an international conference on ideas and art in Doha in 2010, said, “Qatar wants to be a modern nation, but at the same time we are reconnecting and reasserting our Arab heritage.”

The key showcase for local artists is the Arab Museum of Modern Art, which opened in 2010. Its first three exhibitions featured Qatar artists only. Last year, the museum held shows devoted to more than 20 of the country’s most influential artists.

But a balance between art of Arab heritage and international provenance is hard to spot in Doha, what with the monumental Murakami show at Al Riwaq, the impressive Cai Guo-Qiang exhibition at the Arab Museum of Modern Art, the Bourgeois retrospective at the Katara Cultural Village, and the Richard Serra sculpture on the cornice.

Sheika Al Mayassa said: “‘We don’t want to have what there is in the West, we don’t want their collections. We want to build our own identity, our own fabric.”

For the royal family, “art is big business,” she added at the 2010 conference.

To show just how serious it is, the royal family has undertaken a serious shopping spree, buying up pieces by Paul Cézanne, Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons and Alberto Giacometti, to name but a few.

New art movements have always been slow to gain acceptance and it has taken years for the East and West to appreciate art in all its forms. Observers are hopeful that the skeika’s assertion that “change must happen from within” will occur with time, but say that this can only truly happen if freedom of expression is given to the people of Qatar.

Given the general disregard of many Middle East leaders for human rights and the environment, critics say, it is hard to gauge the Qatar royal family’s motives when the sheika says that art is big business. Whether the country is truly opening up to new ideas by being “a global leader in the world of art and museums,” as the Qatar Museums Authority puts it, remains to be seen.