Naked, gold Trump statue ‘The Orange Plague’ goes on display at European Parliament

A 2.6-metre, 23-carat gold-leaf statue of US President Donald Trump, shown naked and perched on the shoulders of a frail man, has been installed inside the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, drawing both applause and outrage from lawmakers.

Titled “The Orange Plague” and also referred to by its creator as “King of Injustice”, the work shows a heavyset Trump holding a golf club in one hand, with a golf ball shaped like the world at his feet, and the scales of justice in the other. Danish artist Jens Galschiøt says the piece is a satirical outcry against what he sees as the Trump administration’s assault on climate action and the rules-based international order, with the gold coating evoking Hans Christian Andersen’s fable of the emperor with no clothes.

The exhibition was sponsored by Danish left-wing MEP Per Clausen, who invited Galschiøt and has defended the display as a legitimate challenge to power. Clausen told reporters that anyone “too thin-skinned” to tolerate the sculpture being shown in Parliament “has no place on the world stage”. The Sweden Democrats’ group in the European Parliament condemned the move, accusing the far left of dragging an anti-Trump stunt into the chamber.

The statue, which was unveiled on Tuesday, October 6, is scheduled to remain in the Parliament’s Winston Churchill building until Thursday, October 8, before being moved to the COP31 United Nations climate conference in Antalya, Turkey, next month. Galschiøt has been handing out thousands of miniature 3D-printed copies of the work to delegates and visitors as “protest tokens”, and has made digital files available for people to print their own versions.