Pardon Included by Shelby Head

Pardon Included, 2025

Construct

5 x 4.5 in

This work frames satire as an indictment. A Jimmy Kimmel punchline offers citizenship and a presidential pardon in exchange for a million dollars. It reads less as a joke than a summary of policy when set within a decorative, domestic border. The floral pattern softens the brutality of a system in which wealth functions as legal absolution, echoing Donald Trump’s proposed “Gold Card” visa to fast-track status for elite investors.

By embalming late-night humor in a keepsake-like frame, the piece exposes how corruption is normalized through spectacle. Citizenship shifts from civic bond to luxury commodity, and justice becomes something that can be purchased.