Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love

Product Information

HONOLULU— The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) presents the Pacific region’s debut of rising star Salman Toor (b. 1983, Pakistan) in Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love. On view July 13-Oct. 8, the exhibition features approximately 40 recent paintings and works on paper in the artist’s unique style of contemporary genre painting. The exhibition is organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art, and curated by Asma Naeem, Ph.D., the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog that includes essays by Naeem and writer Evan Moffitt, as well as a short story by acclaimed author Hanya Yanagihara, who grew up in Honolulu.

Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love | Baltimore Museum of Art

Flipping to “Thunderstorm,” his painting of the house he grew up in, he said, “It’s about the division between an artist’s life and a kind of cozy family life. When I started this painting, the whole idea was that it would be about lightning, like Giorgione’s ‘The Tempest.’ ” Next up, a photograph he had taken in a gallery at the Uffizi, of a seventeenth-century painting by Gerrit van Honthorst. This and the other Honthorst paintings, he said, “were so much bigger than I thought, and to be honest I was a little disappointed by how tightly painted they were.” Then came a lighthearted scene by Nicolas Lancret, a follower of Watteau, called “The Servant Justified.” Toor went on, “I like how the young man is reaching to the fallen maid. She’s fallen so prettily, and he’s reaching out in what’s almost an embrace. I’ve used that kind of thing a lot in my paintings, and I’ll continue to look at this image.” Velázquez’s “The Supper at Emmaus” evoked a brief dissertation on the greenish tone of the Spanish Master’s underpainting, and how it had influenced his own use of green. “And this is a photo of me trying to do a sissy walk.”Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love is organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and curated by Dr. Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The Rose Art Museum presentation is organized by Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator and Professor of Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University with contributions by Dorian Keeffe, Collections Care and Exhibition Production Assistant. Waltham, Mass. September 2023 – The highly anticipated exhibition, Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love, will be open to the public at the Rose Art Museum from November 16, 2023, to February 11, 2024. This remarkable showcase brings together over 45 recent paintings and works on paper by the Pakistan-born, New York-based artist. Toor’s unique ability to blend historical motifs with contemporary moments creates imaginative new worlds for the 21st century. The exhibition explores themes of desire, family, and tradition, while challenging outdated concepts of power and sexuality. Key Takeaways:• Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love features over 45 recent paintings and works on paper by the Pakistan-born artist. Parts and Things,” a green painting of sundry items of clothing and body parts piled on the floor of a closet, previewed Toor’s semi-abstract “Fag Puddle” series. In “Sleeping Boy,” a young man who resembles Toor lies on white sheets so lusciously painted that they look edible, his face and his naked body illuminated by light from an open laptop. Toor’s virtuoso handling of paint brings the images to life, and the stories they tell, whether simple or complex, catch and engage viewers’ attention. The Whitney show launched Toor as an international art star, a role that he has no intention of playing. He joined the Luhring Augustine gallery in 2020, but instead of doubling or tripling his prices on the primary market Toor and the gallery agreed to keep them relatively low and increase them gradually. “I don’t want a big, intimidating number to enter my head while I’m in the studio,” he said to me. “That would really destroy the process.”

Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love | Baltimore Museum of Art Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love | Baltimore Museum of Art

For our last conversation, Toor had prepared a slide show (on his computer) of paintings, drawings, photographs, and other images that he thought I should see. The first was a painting of his called “Three Friends in a Cab,” which is in the show at the Baltimore Museum. “These guys are at the end of a night out, and they’re being rowdy and maybe that’s a Muslim cabdriver who doesn’t like them,” he said. “I want to do more of these. I’m definitely interested in cabdrivers.” Moving on, he brought up a work by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Gerard ter Borch. “This is ‘A Glass of Lemonade,’ one of my favorite paintings,” Toor said. “I just couldn’t believe it was in Baltimore. The young man is stirring a glass of lemonade for the young lady, and their fingers are just touching—it’s an amazingly sensual scene.” The slide show was going to be unstructured, I could see. Toor can seem mild-mannered and deferential, but he has iron-clad confidence in his own impulses.No Ordinary Love captures how Toor upends art historical traditions to center brown, queer figures and to investigate outdated concepts of power and sexuality. In his paintings, Toor captures moments of intimacy and tenderness between family members, friends, and lovers. No! I had a show in New York called Time after Time, and then I used a Sade title for my show at the Baltimore Museum: No Ordinary Love. I’ve done Sade, I’ve done Whitney… Maybe I should do Mariah? Actually, for the Chinese show they wanted me to do another song title, and I said: I’m done. So it’s just called New Paintings and Drawings.

Salman Toor | Fag Puddle with Candle, Shoe, and Flag | The Salman Toor | Fag Puddle with Candle, Shoe, and Flag | The

Toor’s art explores his experiences as a Queer diasporic South Asian man, weaving together historical motifs and contemporary moments.Displaying Salman Toor's distinct hybrid compositions, "Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love" explores the artist's experiences as a Queer diasporic South Asian man, creating imaginative new worlds for the 21st century. Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love features more than 45 paintings and works on paper made between 2019 and 2022, that weave together motifs found in historical paintings with recognizable 21st-century moments to create new worlds based in Toor’s imagination. The exhibition captures the ways in which Toor engages with art history to center brown, queer figures and to challenge enshrined notions of power and sexuality. The Rose Art Museum is thrilled to present Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love to its audiences. Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum, describes Toor as a stellar painter and virtuoso draftsman. The exhibition showcases Toor’s deep art historical knowledge, spanning European, American, and South Asian traditions. Works like Boys in Bed (2021), recently acquired by the Rose Art Museum, demonstrate Toor’s ability to imbue sensuality, vulnerability, and humor into his art. No Ordinary Love promises to be a riveting exhibition that will leave a lasting impact on all who experience it. I am an aspirational minimalist, and I fail at it, but I keep trying. I’m a hoarder, but I like to organise. I actually cleaned last night, and I’m in a very organised apartment right now – it’s just giving me shivers of pleasure to walk around it.

Salman Toor: From Pakistan with Love Juxtapoz Magazine - Salman Toor: From Pakistan with Love

We aimed to echo his sensibilities through a soft gender-neutral palette and the use of the typeface Epicene. This display typeface manages to be elegant and flamboyant while still reading as elevated and, perhaps, proper.The presentation of Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love at the Honolulu Museum of Art forms part of a national tour. Biswas, Sneha (2022-03-04). "Jungle Nama: Ghosh's adaptation of a mystic folktale from the Sundarbans Amitav Ghosh, Salman Toor, Jungle Nama, HarperCollins Publishers India, 2021, 88 pp., ISBN 978-9353579128 (Hardcover)". Journal of Social and Economic Development. 24: 237–239. doi: 10.1007/s40847-022-00178-0. ISSN 0972-5792. S2CID 247267115.