Fair is Fair — Pam Daniels

A woman is seen from the back looking at artwork on the walls in a gallery setting — *Fair is Fair artwork by Pam Daniels on display at Kimball Arts Center in Chicago.*

Fair is Fair is a reaction and provocation related to the Dobbs v Jackson ruling which overturned Roe v Wade. The work has two elements— a wall-mounted piece which measures 24 x 45 ½ inches (wheat-pasted paper on india-inked plywood), and a scaled-down version of the work as a small vellum-covered booklet measuring 9 ¼ x 6 ⅛ inches.

*Booklet version of Fair is Fair by Pam Daniels*

The formatting of both elements strictly adheres to the typeface and formatting requirements of Supreme Court documents but offers the Opinion of the Artist rather than the Opinion of the Court. In this provocative mock ruling, men are compelled to offer housing to anyone who desires to share their residence. The piece begins with the following statement:

“Whereas U.S. women can now be compelled to house an unwanted or dangerous occupant within their body and to nourish and sustain that being for a period of nine months followed by painful expulsion, U.S. men are hereby ordered to accept any visitor who seeks entry into their home, whether through invitation or forced entry, and to offer said visitor a place of residence for a similar period of nine months.”

This piece is intended to build empathy for what I see as the absurdity of women’s loss of bodily autonomy. Full text is below.

*Fair is Fair by Pam Daniels, digitized version*

Full text of the artwork is available as a PDF here.

The work was first exhibited at the Kimball Arts Center during the Super Surface Art Show in November 2023. For similar thematic works, see also “Bluntspeak” and “(A Woman is More than) A Vase with a Face.”