Three years ago at Documenta , the quintennial mega-survey of contemporary art in Kassel , Germany , which was devoted that time around to righteous and civic-minded art , Pettibon 's loopy , messy drawings of steaming trains , gangsters , Bible thumpers , California surfer dudes and vintage baseball players in the slanting light of the late afternoon -- accompanied , as usual , by incantatory texts culled from Mickey Spillane or Walter Pater or St. Augustine or wherever -- came as a tonic and a rebuke .