Isabelle Frances McGuireJoy is a Puppet
Oct 3 – Nov 28, 2026 Chinatown
A playable video-game segment, bronze statuettes and hand-woven baskets set up a game world in a fictional colonial-era Salem.
In McGuire’s first solo show at Bel Ami, the start of a video game is presented with bronze figures of its heroine Joy and her frog companions, all called Sister, plus a series of baskets woven by hand. The player is cast not as the hero fighting a town’s dark magic but as the one accused of it.
McGuire was born in Austin and lives in Chicago, and showed a large installation in the 2026 Whitney Biennial.
Gallery Chinatown