The Poet 2019

Salman Toor, born in Pakistan but now working in New York, paints intimate scenes from the lives of brown, queer men. This is a contemporary update to the tradition of history painting, which has usually focused on supposedly great events and people. The languid poses of the figures, and the warm tones of the painting, are reminiscent of eighteenth century art. However, here, the setting is not some European palace, but what might be a New York apartment. The artist draws on his experience as a Pakistani immigrant, and the painting shows figures who are not part of the traditional art establishment. This work, made in the twenty-first century, asks us to reconsider whose stories get told, and whose lives are deemed worthy of representation in art. Historians of art use a range of resources such as exhibition reviews, artists’ biographies, and social theory to try to understand what an artwork like this might mean. The meaning of art always depends on its social and institutional context.