Toor’s electrifying pictures have made him a global star – and he’s even painted Zohran Mamdani. As the artist hits London’s prestigious Courtauld Gallery, he talks about Manet, mullahs and the mayor
In Salman Toor’s paintings, queer south Asian men hang out in bars, twerk at trippy gatherings and lose themselves in phone screens. Sometimes they huddle in the back of taxis or pillow-fight on beds. In one portrait, a brown man stares apprehensively while facing customs officials. For the 43-year-old Pakistani American artist, it’s crucial that these figures take centre stage, after years of being demonised and erased.
“It excites me that the cuteness and sexiness of brown protagonists can become familiar,” says Toor when we meet at his sun-drenched Brooklyn studio, a few weeks before his first solo show in Europe. “Their stories are not a gay side story in a family saga. It’s the main story. And everyone else is in the background.”
