Opening Artist Reception – Saturday September 6, from 5:00 – 9:00 PM
Exhibit on view from September 5 through October 4, 2014
AXOM Gallery is pleased to present “Metropoliticoncious II”, by Miami born / Haitian raised artist Francesca Lalanne. This exhibit is the sequel to Lalanne’s 2006 exhibition at Edgezones Project space in Miami Florida. Here Lalanne’s new work consists of large sculptures and paintings arranged as an installation to suggest a narrative with in the space. Using the multiplication of figures and props she is focused on the idea of the collective rather than individual objectification.
It is Lalanne’s intention to address concerns around issues regarding the exploitation of people and to question the nature of control and freedom. Relating to the concepts of the Docile Bodies in Michel Foucault’s book “Discipline and Punish”, Lalanne metaphorically exemplifies through material and form the subjective nature of our human condition of participation in willing submission, technological revolution, homogeneous compartmentalization, restraint, and humility. The installation adheres to the notion of a society uncontrollably controlled by a system larger, stronger and anonymously detached from humanity for the sake of protection and improvement of the individual for the greater good.
“Particularly with the work I’m doing now, I’m focused on the realm of being controlled by the things we cannot control and the balance between them.” Francesca Lalanne 2014
Francesca Lalanne was raised in Haiti until 1987 when her and her sister fled, like many, due to the revolt against the political leadership, and moved to Miami, Florida with her mother. At a young age she became interested in architecture and attended the architectural magnet school which led her to her higher education at the Florida International University where she completed her Bachelor of Design in Architectural Studies and her Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 2012 she completed her Masters of Fine Art at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has had several solo exhibitions and participated in a variety of group exhibitions along with performance and public art installations. In 2012 she received the Wallace Center Purchase Prize Award and the Merit Art Scholarship from Rochester Institute of Technology. Francesca recently moved back to Miami, FL from Rochester, NY and will be featured in the Red Dot Art Fair, part of Art Basel: Miami Beach, 2014.