File photo: Visitors looks at a scupture titled “The Orange Plague” by Danish artist Jens Galschiot
The work is also known as the “King of Injustice”. The artist has said the US president is destroying the causes and institutions he believes in, including efforts to tackle climate change. Galschiøt has said the sculpture draws inspiration from Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, in which a vain emperor parades through his city naked while those around him pretend he is wearing magnificent clothes.
Titled ‘The Orange Plague’, the sculpture by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt depicts Trump sitting on the shoulders of a frail, smaller man, with his thighs and sagging belly wrapped around the man’s head. Trump holds a golf club in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. The sculpture is a satirical critique of what Galschiøt sees as Trump’s threats to the environment, international cooperation and the rules-based world order. The work also questions how political power is exercised and how its consequences are borne by those with less power.
The artist has said he produced around 20,000 miniatures for distribution to visitors and European Parliament staff.
“Dictators don’t like you laughing at them,” the artist said, explaining the thinking behind the work. Clausen said he wanted to encourage debate about how power is used around the world and how Europe can protect its interests without becoming dependent on Trump. The Strasbourg installation was accompanied by 3D-printed miniature versions of the sculpture, distributed to visitors as “protest tokens”.
This is also not the first Trump sculpture to depict Trump naked based on a correlation with the fairy tale, a previous series of statues displayed across the US by an artist collective was also titled, ‘The Emperor Has No Balls’. By depicting Trump naked, Galschiøt seeks to ridicule the president and strip away the image of authority surrounding him. He defended the exhibition as an opportunity to display work that not everyone might agree with.