The King in the Swamp - A Billboard as a Visual Indictment of the Trump Era

Anyone driving through the Grand Avenue District in Phoenix these days - specifically between 10th and 11th Avenue - sees not just a billboard. They see a work of art, a protest signal, a monumental indictment in artistic form. A billboard that shows U.S. President Donald Trump sunk up to his chest in a muddy swamp, surrounded by destruction, greed, and political decay - a scene that feels like a dark fever dream and yet appears frighteningly real. Wearing a crown, holding an iPhone, and sporting a golden presidential medal around his neck, Trump stares back at the viewer. Behind him rise decaying Trump towers, and in the distance, a mushroom cloud explodes. The setting is no accident: the billboard is positioned so that it can be seen even from the air - by anyone landing or taking off at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. A deliberate placement, a visual “Welcome to Trump’s America.”

At the center of the billboard is a burning legislative text with the ironic title “The Big Bad Ugly Bill Act.” Listed beneath are fictional law points: billions for ICE, the disenfranchisement of migrants, a ban on Harvard scholarships, and the legalization of bribes over $100,000. Nearby: a tattered Harvard sweatshirt, Trump’s book “The Art of the Steal” (a twist on his real title “The Art of the Deal”), a warning sign that reads “T-RUMP - Toxic Republican Unconstitutional Menace.” Above it all, the airplane “Big Beautiful Bribe” rests crooked in the swampy landscape - a symbol of corrupt power politics, enriched with a sarcastic nod to Trump’s love of superlatives. This image is not a Photoshop montage. It is real. And it is the work of two women who have spent years artistically grappling with Trump’s politics: Karen Fiorito, an artist from California, and Beatrice Moore, a preservationist and longtime supporter of the Grand Avenue Billboard Projects. Fiorito is known for her visually striking, politically pointed public installations - always satirical, often shocking, never arbitrary. Moore not only provides the space, but also curates and supports works that deal with social upheaval and political responsibility.

Back in 2017, Fiorito drew attention at this very location when she depicted Trump surrounded by Nazi symbols and atomic explosions. After the storming of the Capitol in 2021, a billboard appeared here with Trump as a baby in a suit. But what has been on display since July 2025 surpasses all previous works in its compositional force. It is a deliberate, multilayered collage that turns Trump’s own iconography - the crown, the iPhone, the Trump brand, the airplane - into a memorial against abuse of power, corruption, and moral decay. The billboard is more than a personal reckoning. It is a collective memory. A warning. An art installation that does not hang in a museum but stands by the roadside - where no one can miss it. It is directed not only at the citizens of Phoenix but at the entire nation - especially those en route to political events or flying in government planes over Arizona’s capital. Because right there, where they land or take off, Trump stares back from the swamp. And so this billboard, as its creators themselves say, is a piece of “visual democracy”: public, provocative, uncomfortable - and hauntingly relevant. Anyone who sees it understands at once what this artwork is about: the legacy of a presidency that, for many, left nothing but rubble. Whether the billboard will be taken down or painted over in the coming weeks remains uncertain. But its impression - and its message - endure. In the skies above Phoenix. And in the minds of all those who refuse to forget what political power in the wrong hands can do.