Fag Puddle with Candle, Shoe, and Flag

Toor grew up in Pakistan but attended school in the United States and now splits his time between New York and Lahore. His poetic works straddle both cultures and focus on the ways in which his queer self-identity intersects with his Muslim cultural background and his love of Western art history. In this monumental example from his Fag Puddles series, accumulations of objects symbolic of his international experiences form delightfully jumbled piles. Here, a feather boa intertwines with a retro striped tie of the sort worn by schoolboys, while a tombstone in the traditional mosque shape crowns the heap. Parts of sculptures (or bodies) and a museum-like vitrine also join the mix. The eerie shades of green that form the majority of Toor’s palette are another of the artist’s hallmarks: for him, these absinthe-like colors are "velvety, nocturnal, and comforting."[1]

[1] Asma Naeem, ed. Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love. Exh. cat. Baltimore Museum of Art. New York, 2022, p. 49.