In the world of appointment-only gallery visits, many have bemoaned the more restricted experience, and galleries themselves have completely reinvented the way that they conduct themselves. They are no longer able to attract visitors off the street nor draw large crowds at openings, and many have struggled to adapt. But for Galerie Lakaye and their re-opening show, “In This Time” by Haitian artist Francesca Lalanne, appointment-only is par for the course.

For the past 30 years, Galerie Lakaye has not only been the definitive gallery of Haitian art in Los Angeles, but it has been the home and studios of gallery owners/artists Carine Fabius and Pascal Giacomini. Amidst LA’s cookie-cutter gallery spaces, which fight for the most industrial, most removed locations, Galerie Lakaye is simply a slice of life in Hollywood. The works for each show are hung in every room of their house, from the living room where you enter to their bedroom. As consummate hosts, Carine and Pascal show the art in an incredibly approachable and welcoming manner.

Francesca Lalanne, Substratum, 2015. Courtesy Galerie Lakaye.

And there could hardly be a better space for Francesca Lalanne’s works, which encourage close examination. There is a wide range of works on display, but the most striking for me were the series of metal engravings called “Lamentations.” Within them, Lalanne summons gaunt, line-work figures from the depths of her mind, making permanent altars to the horrors that many have experienced this year. These works act as reflections of Lalanne’s own grappling with events like the ongoing pandemic and televised police brutality, and evoke the intense sadness and loneliness of this year. Lalanne uses her works to connect with the viewer through our collective experience with the dystopia around us.

Inspired by her background in architecture, the engravings have a structural feel. Many of them include girders or houses which introduce a sense of depth or verticality. The unifying element throughout all of the works in the “Lamentations” series is a small granite cube suspended by a steel wire from the top center of the work. The pendulum-like cube offers the sensation of balance and centering. It acts like a plumb line for the work, measuring its depth and verticality—again referencing her architectural inspirations.

Lalanne herself refers to the cube as symbolic of the “emotional load” she felt throughout 2020. This symbol is repeated in her other series of works, titled “Under Construction” (2015–17). Some of these works are created directly onto plaster and wood, with exposed screws as if it was cut directly out of a wall. This material choice symbolically inspires the tearing down of barriers and pushing through obstructions.