The New Yorker
October 20, 2009EVELYNE AXELL
The presence of the Belgian painter Evelyne Axell (1935-72) on the Brussels art scene was likened by the critic Pierre Restany to a “sexual revolution in art.” There’s ample evidence here, in vibrant paintings on Plexiglas: erotic (and autoerotic) portraits of nude women. In one, a hummingbird flies toward the subject’s less-than-private parts, as if homing in on nectar. Axell’s similarities to offbeat Pop artists like Tom Wesselmann and John Wesley are obvious, so why her relative obscurity? Like Dorothy Iannone—a similarly sex-positive painter, whose career has been lately resuscitated—Axell deserves to be better known. Through Nov. 21. (Broadway 1602, at 1182 Broadway, at 28th St. 212-481-0362.)
