A Literary Celebrity Points Fingers at the Art World
In his latest novel, Brandon Taylor doesn’t shy away from the third rail of identity politics.
The author Brandon Taylor
Photographer: Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Getty Images
On a warm September afternoon in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, the author Brandon Taylor narrows his eyes at a giant artwork hanging in the Hauser & Wirth gallery. The piece—a collage by the artist María Berrío—depicts two brown-skinned figures in a languid pose reminiscent of Gauguin. “I don’t know that it speaks to me,” says Taylor, who is wearing dark shorts, an untucked denim shirt, closed-toe Birkenstocks and a baseball cap. “What is it telling us about Blackness?”
This is not an idle question for Taylor, whose newest novel, Minor Black Figures (Oct. 14, Riverhead Books), explores the moral, ethical and aesthetic validity of representing “otherness” in art.