Mr. Bereal said a woman at the exhibition opening described him as an anarchist Boy Scout, a grand compliment. The observation is apt as one of Mr. Bereal’s greatest influences since he was a child is Norman Rockwell, the de facto illustrator of white nostalgia.

“He was probably the most political artist that I have ever known and maybe that is still true. He was showing a kind of America that was really kind of alien to me,” Mr. Bereal said. “He was on the sunny side of the street, and I was on the shady side.”

“Wanted” can be seen as a lifetime of Mr. Bereal answering the question provoked by Mr. Rockwell: What does America look like from my side of the street? Or, as the artist has personified it, what does “Miss America” look like?

Mr. Bereal’s answer is a grim, industrial spin on Lady Liberty, with skeletal metal fingers, sneering teeth and a nail crown. Miss America is Bereal’s puppet master and appears frequently, such as in the installation “Miss America: Manufacturing Consent (Upsidedown and Backwards),” where docile Americans queue to have their heads nailed on upside-down and backward by the matriarch.

Ms. Leach said that when she was planning the retrospective, she conferred with David Doll, the Bellingham police chief , the city’s mayor, Kelli Linville, City Council, the museum board and other community leaders.