Across a growing body of work, Isabelle Frances McGuire turns to familiar figures in American culture with a special interest in the ones that are elevated as models of behavior worth emulating, sometimes against all odds. Whether looking to Elvis, Jesus, Napoleon, or Baby Yoda, McGuire embraces some of the archetypes that loom large in the cultural imagination, or the stories that follow them, and gives them a new uncanny life.  McGuire’s exhibition at the Renaissance Society springs out of the lasting lionization of Abraham Lincoln, and it expands from there to think more widely about forms of re-enactment. In various ways here, McGuire tests out different approaches to recreating the past, re-animating old models, or revisiting persistent symbols.