All gold, no clothes: Orange Plague statue brings naked Trump to EU Parliament

US President Donald Trump came to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Oct 6 naked and in gold, with a golf club in his hand and a smaller man carrying his weight.The figure is a statue. The burden is the point.Danish artist Jens Galschiot’s Orange Plague, also known as King Of Injustice, depicts a naked Trump perched on another man’s shoulders.The sculpture stands about 2.4m tall, including its pedestal, and is coated in 23-karat gold, according to the artist. It currently occupies a busy hallway connecting two parliament buildings and will remain there till Oct 8.An inscription on the pedestal delivers a scathing indictment of the US president: “I am sitting on the back of a man. He is sinking under the burden. I would do anything to help him. Except stepping down from his back.”Galschiot said his work is a criticism of Trump’s obstruction of global efforts to address climate change. It previously appeared at the COP30 UN climate conference in Belem, Brazil, in 2025, and has been displayed in other European cities.Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has left the Paris climate agreement, rolled back emissions rules and cut support for cleaner energy.Danish European Parliament member Per Clausen invited Galschiot to bring the statue in Strasbourg.Anticipating backlash from Trump, the left-wing lawmaker said: “If someone is so thin-skinned that they cannot tolerate this sculpture being exhibited in the European Parliament, then they have no place on the world stage.”Standing about 2.4m tall, the sculpture shows a naked President Donald Trump, with a gold club in one hand, being carried on the shoulders of a smaller man. PHOTO: JENS GALSCHOTTrump had not publicly commented on the display, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.For Galschiot, the sculpture continues a career of setting his political beliefs in stone.Born in Denmark in 1954, the trained blacksmith is best known for Pillar Of Shame, a series of monuments depicting intertwined, anguished human bodies. Its Hong Kong version commemorates victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.He also founded Art in Defence of Humanism, a group linking public art with campaigns against oppression and inequality.