Minor Black Figures

The gimlet-eyed latest from Taylor (The Late Americans) follows a creatively blocked painter through the New York City art world. Wyeth, who is Black and gay, feels enervated by the industry’s tendency to commodify artist’s identities and by the “careerist young painters” who play along. Nevertheless, Wyeth admits to having practiced “identity-based art grift” by selling a painting that viewers mistakenly read as commentary on the recent murder of George Floyd but was actually inspired by classic European cinema. Now, in search of a new subject, he struggles to square his sense of integrity with pressures on Black artists to represent their culture. He also frets over whether he can make a career as a painter, or if his “work work” as an art handler and restorer will become his “real work,” thus proving the fallacy of this “juvenile” distinction. The ideas at play take on greater dimension in barbed banter between Wyeth and Keating, his new lover and potential muse (“In 2020, everyone died. And this year, everyone wants to come see the resurrection,” Keating says, commenting on the city’s housing shortage after Covid-19). Through it all, Taylor evokes the quiet pace of his protagonist’s summer days, gesturing at the contemplative cinema Wyeth so appreciates. There’s much to admire in this portrait of an artist in flux. (Oct.)