A controversial 8.5-foot-tall statue depicting US President Donald Trump naked and covered in 23-carat gold leaf has been installed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
The artwork, titled “The Orange Plague” and also known as the “King of Injustice”, was created by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt and unveiled on Tuesday.
The copper sculpture portrays Trump sitting on the shoulders of a frail man, with his thighs and sagging belly wrapped around the smaller figure’s head.
He is depicted holding a golf club in one hand and the scales of justice in the other.
An inscription on the statue’s plinth reads, “I am sitting on the back of a man,” followed by, “He is sinking under my burden. I will do anything to help him. Except step down from his back.”
Explaining his choice of gold, Galschiøt said, “Trump likes gold. In a way, I think he would like this sculpture.”
The artist said the work was intended to represent what he considers the US president’s threats to the environment and the rules-based international order.
“Trump is destroying all the things I believe in,” he said.
The display was sponsored by Danish politician Per Clausen, a member of the European Parliament and the socialist Red-Green Alliance party.
The exhibition’s approval does not represent an official endorsement by the European Union, as MEPs are permitted to sponsor cultural events and exhibitions within designated parliamentary areas.
Galschiøt said he chose to portray Trump naked as a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, in which a vain emperor walks through the city without clothes.
“Dictators don’t like you laughing at them,” he said.
Clausen said the exhibition was intended to encourage discussion about the use of power and Europe’s relationship with the United States under Trump.
“I think we need to have a discussion about power in the world and how this power is used,” he said.
“The way Trump acts is a very, very big problem for people in Europe. I want to raise the discussion in Europe about how we can make our self-defense against Trump, and how can we make politics that is not dependent on him.”
The exhibition is expected to remain on display until Thursday, alongside more than 1,000 3D-printed miniature versions of the sculpture being distributed as “protest tokens”.
Clausen said the response had generally been positive, apart from opposition from “some people from the extreme right wing.”
“It’s very important that we in parliament have this opportunity to show things that not everybody agrees with,” he said.
The artist has previously displayed “The Orange Plague” at the Munich Security Conference and the COP30 climate conference in Brazil. He also plans to exhibit it at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, next month.
Trump has yet to publicly comment on the artwork.
A spokesperson for the European Parliament said the exhibition was approved by the parliament’s quaestors, a cross-party group of MEPs responsible for administrative matters.
The spokesperson said, “Each MEP is entitled to sponsor two cultural events or exhibitions per parliamentary term in dedicated areas,” while the quaestors “assess the compliance with the rules in place.”
Galschiøt is also known for his “Pillar of Shame” artwork, which commemorates victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and was controversially removed from a Hong Kong university in 2021.
He said both works address the relationship between those with power and those without it.
