Post-Fair

Bel Ami at Post-Fair 2026
Booth 28
February 26 – 28, 2026

Bel Ami presents bewitching sculptures by Isabelle Frances McGuire at Post-Fair 2026. This continues McGuire’s investigations in Year Zero, their 2024 – 2025 solo exhibition at The Renaissance Society exploring the legendary origin stories of Abraham Lincoln and other heroic icons, and previews the artist’s forthcoming installation in the Whitney Biennial 2026, opening March 8.

In their practice, McGuire mines readymade materials, from anonymous medical scans to mass-produced costumes, recasting figures and allegories that are ingrained in cultural memory, as well as in the artist’s own psyche. Often referencing the customizable structure and style of first-person shooter video games, McGuire recodes well-known characters including Elvis Presley, Frankenstein’s Monster, Yoda, Napoleon Bonaparte, Santa Claus, and Jesus Christ, disconnecting them from their original contexts and repurposing them for new plots. In recent installations, McGuire has scaled down monsters and heroes to child size, rendering looming figures as vulnerable creatures. These uncanny materializations incite us to probe the soft power that heavily mythologized characters hold over our imaginations and morals.

Bel Ami’s installation at Post-Fair resembles an unmarked burial mound, overgrown with wildflowers. Beneath the surface, busts of figures evoke ghoulish archetypes—vampires and witches—and also real women. Made with open-source 3D scans of female bodies from COVID research, two sculptures entitled Underworld hint at how women and their bodies have been co-opted to represent fears and to serve campaigns in both fictional and historical events. Seemingly buried alive, their transmogrifying faces depict demonization as an imposed process.

Grasses, flowers, and wheat stalks stricken by ergot fungus sprout from the muddy ground surrounding the crypt. McGuire’s use of diseased grains cites the Salem Witch Trials (1692 – 1693), as some modern psychologists attributed these mass hysterical events—which resulted in 30 convictions and 19 executions—to hallucinations caused by ergot poisoning. This theory has largely been discredited, and historians have posited that the trials were driven by more ‘rational,’ man-made conspiracies. Accusations of witchcraft may well have been used as a pretense for land seizures.

With this dark subject matter, McGuire makes light of the multiple meanings of ‘plot,’ which include: a tract of real estate, a plan for deception, and a storyline. Rather than simply adding to the endless rehashing of undying narratives in updated costuming, McGuire prompts us to question who we want to be in this life and the next.

Isabelle Frances McGuire (b. 1994, Austin, TX) lives and works in Chicago. They received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Past solo and two person presentations of the artist’s work include The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2024); What Pipeline, Detroit (2023); Scherben, Berlin (2022); King’s Leap, New York (2021); Mickey, Chicago (2021); Good Weather at Et al., San Francisco (2020); From The Desk of Lucy Bull, Los Angeles (2020); and Prairie, Chicago (2017). Recent group shows include My Story Gallery, High Art & Sister, Seoul (2024); Artists Space, New York (2024); Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), Petzel Gallery, New York (2024); Descending the Staircase, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago (2023); Tell Me What You Want, Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2023); M. LeBlanc, Chicago (2023); In Lieu, Los Angeles (2020); and At the End of the Game You Will Be Forgotten, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (2018).

Post-Fair is an alternative three-day art fair in Los Angeles running from February 26 – 28, 2026. It seeks to simplify the art fair experience by focusing on solo presentations in an iconic venue with a relatively low impact, open plan format.