Landscapes of Desire: A Visual Analysis of Salman Toor's Queer Utopia

Abstract

This thesis explores the utopian potential of queerness. In doing so, I analyze the works by Pakistan-born, US-based visual artist Salman Toor that were exhibited in his latest show at the Whitney Museum that was up from November 13th, 2020, to April 4th, 2021. I argue Toor’s Whitney exhibition marks a vital moment in curation that heightens awareness of place and temporality in the service of creating a utopic practice of aesthetics emanating from a queer brown diasporic experience. Salman Toor imagines a queer utopia by depicting brown men in moments of homosociality and self-love in private spaces of the diaspora in New York City. Toor ruptures the notions of heteronormative race, gender, sexuality, and to some extent class and cultural affiliations by presenting his imaginations vis-a-vis non-human figures, which he calls marionettes. These lanky, slender, slouching figures bear the burden of queer of color utopian imaginations and help us exist in the here and now while forcing us to imagine, quoting Muñoz, the “horizon” (87). Toor is a break within the formalist tradition of painting in the way that he uses his subjects, color, and its treatment. He rewrites what it means to be queer in the diasporic imagination of being a person of color. This thesis opens further avenues in research and analysis which can encapsulate larger debates and ideas about queer of color identity politics, and smaller, more specific debates about masculinity, homosociality, utopian imaginations, and hope in the diaspora.