Salman Toor’s evocative, tenderly executed paintings begin to pluck at your heartstrings almost as soon as you see them. The 15 examples of new and recent work that form “How Will I Know,” the artist’s brilliant New York institutional debut at the Whitney Museum of American Art tell the stories of lanky, slightly rubbery dark-haired young men, gentle souls who wouldn’t hurt a flea.
The narrative import zigzags from the personal to the social and political and back. It doesn’t take long to figure out that the main characters here are gay, and not white.
Early in the show hangs “The Star,” a 24-inch tondo (or circular work) its roundness echoed by the image’s elliptical mirror.