Old Masters

Overview

Basma al-Sharif’s new work Old Masters was filmed at the Gothenburg Museum of Art in the spring of 2025. Inspired by Gus van Sant’s film Elephant (2003) and Alan Clarke’s earlier work (1989) with the same title, the video work follows protagonists throughout the museum and through an orange garden in Gaza. In conversation with fellow artists, al-Sharif opens up a space for reflection on the role of the witness. In Old Masters, al-Sharif returns to ideas and questions raised in an earlier work, Ouroboros, a film she conceived nearly ten years ago as a visual elegy for Gaza, connecting Palestine to other parts of the world. In Ouroboros, al-Sharif asks what gets to survive versus what is destroyed. As a genocide is enacted in Gaza, these questions remain urgent and shape al-Sharif’s new work.