Rosa Joly's Films and Sculpture Explore Evidence, Absence, and Desire at Les Bains-Douches, Alençon

Les Bains-Douches in Alençon presents an exhibition of work by Rosa Joly, featuring 16 mm films and a new sculpture. Joly's films, shot in bedrooms and hotels, employ an unwieldy analogue camera that demands physical presence and yields unpredictable results. The artist often appears alongside friends, trading comfort for the combustive reaction between artist and machine. Her practice draws on forensic parallels: mugshots, crime scene photographs, and the reanimation of images as a form of autopsy. Collage works incorporating votive paper, gift wrapping, and rhinestones echo themes of mutilation and suturing, while recurring motifs of teeth—a dangling molar, a decaying tooth, prosthetic canines—underscore teeth as enduring evidence of identity and fate. The sculpture Bridge (2026) captures a cast iron railing near Joly's home through frottage with aluminium foil, its sections resembling a film strip and its ruffled edges evoking lace. Douglas Crimp's 1978 essay on Degas links lace to photography, noting the French dentelle derives from dent (tooth), and a lost tooth leaves a gap—a negative between positives. Joly's work probes film's dependence on absence, the oscillation between having and being, and the camera as a stand-in for desire. The exhibition is on view at Les Bains-Douches, Alençon.