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Late Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, dozens of art world insiders received a fund-raising message from Nancy Pelosi. Im in disbelief, the text began. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the violent, deadly insurrection on our nations capitol, and several reports show Republicans surging in the run-up to the midterms. We need to send a strong message that our democracy is sacred.

The message was typical enough of the calls to arms blasted by progressive campaigns and organizers like ActBlue and MoveOn. But then, the kicker: Thats why I need you to show up at the opening of artist Paul Chans new exhibition at Greene Naftali Gallery, tomorrow

Pelosi then recited the news release for Chans new show.

It turns out the text was a joke. But the subtext was not. The storming of the Capitol Building was too dire to ignore, with half a dozen lives lost, traumatized police and hundreds of rioters facing criminal charges. Chan, an artist, activist and satirist, and a winner of the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize (as the Pelosi text emphasized), is not alone among those compelled to face Jan. 6 through their artwork: The anniversary had a handful of other memorial openings.

Was Chans toonish but grave exhibition, which runs through Jan. 22, a worthwhile response? Where Trumps followers chose violence, the artist offered A drawing as a recording of an insurrection. The show features a single double-sided drawing done in brushed black ink, suspended diagonally across the gallery in a plexiglass frame. One side depicts tumbling, churning masses of protesters urged on by a blustering, Trump-like cloud. The so-called QAnon Shaman is there, centered in the banner-size composition, unmistakable with his buffalo headdress and bare nipples (Jacob Chansley his real name was sentenced to 41 months for his role). Flanking the Capitol dome, which swarms with rampaging stick-figures, the sun and crescent moon shed tears.

Beneath the zany, energetic portrayal of the MAGA throng, Chan includes the cartoon faces of stricken Capitol Police Officers, given Xs for eyes. The other side takes us inside the House chamber, where more stick figures run amok around the compositions border, hanging upside down and sideways. They stare into laptops and film one another with their blocky, brushy phones.

The exhibition seems founded in the heartfelt belief asserted by many artists in the last year that some response to the events of Jan. 6 was necessary. And how else can an artist respond, if not with art?

But the exhibition also concedes that maybe art isnt enough: the news release states that Greene Naftali will hold a voter-registration drive for the duration of Chans exhibition; those who sign up will receive an original drawing Chan made as a gesture of appreciation for affirming the basic and inalienable right to vote in America.

Lets set aside the likelihood that visitors to Chans show in Chelsea will already be seasoned voters. Its not clear that voting is enough, either, given that the exact event at issue was a rejection of due process, an attempt to void inalienable votes cast in Georgia, Arizona, and elsewhere.

Indeed, crying moon and all, the shows very earnestness can seem like a joke. According to the news release, Chan painted the Capitol picture with his left, non-dominant hand in an attempt to reduce the authority of the artists voice, and as an exercise in letting go. This deliberate de-skilling, a faux-naf embrace of pure, even childish expression, puts the work squarely in conversation with so-called outsider art, the bloody revolt of Henry Dargers Vivian Girls in particular.

Chan, of course, is very much an insider: He has exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, and is the subject of a retrospective at the Walker Art Center later this year. His response to Jan. 6 figures in a dense web of meditations on individual liberty, violence, and society, such as his major video animation, Sade for Sades Sake (exhibited at both the Venice Biennale and Greene Naftali in 2009), a jittering orgy of silhouetted figures, or his staging of Waiting for Godot in the flood-ruined Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. And stylistically, the Capitol drawing follows a series of illustrations Chan made to accompany a new English translation of a childrens book by the terse philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this context, at least, the overt silliness of the work has an intellectual basis.

But the activist tone of A drawing as a recording of an insurrection should be seen in the company of other artists efforts to grapple with Jan. 6 and the prevailing political winds. At Doomscrolling, an exhibition uptown at Petzel Gallery, Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston presented a suite of large woodblock prints made since the start of the pandemic, comprising anxious images from their newsfeeds carved into the very sheets of plywood that protected Manhattan businesses during that summers uprisings. The wild ocher- and icy-hued January 6 joins their scenes depicting protests after George Floyds murder; the Kyle Rittenhouse killings; and the time a fly rested on Mike Pences head, among other vignettes from a divided, livestreamed nation.

The artist Andre Serrano marked the day by debuting Insurrection, a full-length documentary about Jan. 6, in Washington, D.C. The film continues Serranos treatment of Americas darkest political id which includes a series about torture, and portraits of Ku Klux Klansmen by presenting a video of the riot in the style of D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation. (He is also no stranger to the culture wars: Serranos photograph Piss Christ has the distinction of having been denounced on the Senate floor in 1989.)

In the past year, Robert Longo, a member of the Pictures Generation, has added an image of Jan. 6 to his catalog of iconic photos of American unrest since 2016, rendered as exactingly detailed, mural-scale charcoal drawings. And the current Prospect.5 triennial in New Orleans includes a fiery history painting of the Capitol attack by Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, titled Dont You See That I Am Burning, based on a line from Freuds dream book.

Mark Meadows. Mr. Trumps chief of staff, who initially provided the panel with a trove of documents that showed the extent of his rolein the efforts to overturn the election, is now refusing to cooperate. The House voted to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress.

Scott Perry and Jim Jordan. The Republican representatives of Pennsylvaniaand Ohioare among a group of G.O.P. congressmenwho were deeply involved in efforts to overturn the election. Both Mr. Perryand Mr. Jordanhaverefused to cooperatewith the panel.

Michael Flynn. Mr. Trumps former national security adviser attended an Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers. Mr. Flynn has filed a lawsuitto block the panels subpoenas.

Phil Waldron. The retired Army colonelhas been under scrutiny since a 38-page PowerPoint documenthe circulated on Capitol Hill was turned over to the panel by Mr. Meadows. The document contained extreme plans to overturn the election.

John Eastman. The lawyer has been the subject of intense scrutinysince writing a memothat laid out how Mr. Trump could stay in power. Mr. Eastman was present at a meeting of Trump allies at the Willard Hotelthat has becomea prime focus of the panel.

Each of these artists has chosen an essentially realistic, more or less heightened rendition of the chaos and rage as it unfurled on our many screens, as if, through scale or repetition or insistence, a review of the awful facts could emphasize the seriousness of that clash, if not change the world.

But Chans approach seems confused. Politically, the work is intensely earnest. Yet the drawings waves of sketchy minions are laughable, executed like a throwaway gag. Making and exhibiting the work may have satisfied Chans sense of virtue, but the result does little for his audiences understanding of the attack. And the show as a whole, with its news release and voter drive, is an ambivalent gesture, as if the artist himself isnt sure how serious hes being.

For a counterpoint to liberal arts, from a messenger who is nothing if not certain of his mission, see Jon McNaughtons recent painting, Solitary Confinement, posted on the artists website in October.

A painter of blunt conservative allegories and a Republican darling (the Fox host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity is a collector), McNaughton first gained notoriety for a portrait of President Obama burning the Constitution. McNaughtons contribution to the Jan. 6 canon is unexpectedly subtle, and unmistakable: Solitary Confinement shows a man huddled and shackled in a cold stone cell, the heavenly light from the barred windows gracing his red MAGA cap and khaki jumpsuit.

Above his shoulder, etched into the prison wall, are several dates: 1/06/2021, of course, but also 11/08/2022 and 11/05/2024the next two federal elections.

Travis Diehl, a critic, is the online editor at X-TRA, the Los Angeles-based arts journal.

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Artists Respond to Jan. 6 With Brushes and Ballots - The New York Times