Salman Toor
Salman Toor, The Scholar, 2024, oil on panel, 18 × 14".
04 SALMAN TOOR’S EXHIBITIONS AT NEW YORK’S LUHRING AUGUSTINE GALLERIES
I first saw this queer, New York–based Pakistani artist’s paintings in his show at the Whitney Museum of American Art during the pandemic. I remember the buoyancy and texture of the social tableaux he rendered, but also one particular picture, rife with alienation, that depicted a man trapped in airport security. Seeing his two-venue exhibition with Luhring Augustine, I was entranced by the solitude and estrangement of Toor’s figures: Take the lone person gazing into their glowing iPhone at a party, or the man lying in bed, languorous in his underwear, playing with himself while taking a selfie or watching porn. Toor also imbues a subtle decadence into the gender presentation of his subjects—there might be a hint of red nails on one man, for instance, or a flash of pearls on another. Let’s also not forget the delicacy with which he paints his figures’ clown-like noses, and his witty references to Vermeer and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Read full list at artforum.com
