These days you can find in bookstores Small Black Figures, by Booker Prize finalist Brandon Taylor.
En ella seguimos a Wyeth, un pintor de 31 años que vive en el Upper East Side. Wyeth sabe lo que es tener dificultades, ya que su historia personal está llena de ellas. Desde recolectores de tabaco hasta una familia sin padre en un parque de caravanas, todo parecía decir que su destino estaba sellado desde el día en que nació. Sin embargo,
una obra convenientemente viralizada le ha permitido soñar con un futuro en el que es otra persona
, alguien que no quiere recordar el lugar del que salió. Ahora trabaja como restaurador, vende pequeñas obras para un galerista y teme, como todos los artistas, no llegar o no estar en el lugar que debería. Incluso, a veces, parece temer las opiniones sobre su obra.
Translations of the following paragraphs are provided in English:
In it we follow Wyeth, a 31-year-old painter living on the Upper East Side. Wyeth knows what it is to struggle, as his personal history is full of them. From tobacco harvesters to a fatherless family in a trailer park, everything seemed to say his fate was sealed from the day he was born. However, one conveniently viralized work has allowed him to dream of a future in which he is another person, someone who does not want to remember the place he left. He now works as a restorer, sells small pieces to a gallery owner, and fears, like all artists, not making it or not being in the place he should. Even, at times, he seems to fear opinions about his work.
The novel bears the title Small Black Figures because this is the core of Wyeth’s work: he depicts scenes from European cinema in which white actors are replaced by black figures, which has sparked countless speculations, from direct critique of the concept of artwork and artist to commentary on the social dimension that is always assumed to be what an artist represents. This allows Taylor to unleash more elaborate thoughts and reflections on art and African American aesthetics in the United States. Taylor will upset many by talking about the political use of art and even race in order to gain fame or become a media instrument. He points out how media-friendly and convenient it can be for a politician to praise a person of color, as in the famous portrait of Barack Obama hanging in the Smithsonian, more for who it represents and who painted it than for the quality of the work. Wyeth makes these issues his own to reach the question of whether true artistic experience would need to be freed from all this opportunism dressed as social identity. But he goes even further by challenging almost everything he sees, as if merely being an artist required that anything at his disposal should transmit emotions to him. As you read, you will repeatedly linger on the term “impostor” as you think about how the protagonist feels. The novel addresses the romance between Wyeth and Keating, a relationship that is almost tangible in a book with a strong post-pandemic sense: here the important thing is to touch, to feel, and to relate. New York’s people went out into the streets eager to connect, and that feeling is palpable in the city the writer shows us. A city ruled by social networks and screens in which art must struggle with constant stimulation, and perhaps that is why it fills the reader with artistic references and endless lists that seem to aim at showing everything the world is willing to give us if we pay a little attention.
Small Black Figures is a novel that approaches art from every angle that an artist could perceive it: from the surprise of success to writer’s block, through insecurities and fears that start from the work itself and extend to those based on the various criticisms that can arise from each gaze. And yet, it seems to tell us, creating is worthwhile.
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Author: Brandon Taylor. Title: Small Black Figures. Translation: Lucas Gonzalvo Valls. Publisher: Letras de plata. Available at: Todos tus libros.