Jim Carrey’s satirical cartoons touch a nipple—and a nerve

There’s nothing to laugh lightly at in IndigNation: Political Cartoons by Jim Carrey, 2016-18, which opened this week at Maccarone Gallery’s Los Angeles Outpost (until 1 December), timed to coincide with the US midterm elections. All of the movie star’s works—including a depiction of Donald Trump in his bathrobe, touching an exposed nipple—“represent this intense anxiety”, says the gallerist Michele Maccarone, “and I think they really embody this moment”. Maccarone says she “jumped back” when she visited Carrey’s studio last spring and saw the show’s key work: Abnormal Rockwell, which repurposes one of the all-American artist’s saccharine scenes—which are always a little sinister under the surface in Maccarone’s opinion—scarring it with bullet holes and dripping blood. “[Carrey] sees things, they make him uncomfortable, and he feels the impulse to turn them into art… he’s just going to make the drawings as they come,” she says.