A gigantic golden statue depicts a completely naked Donald Trump sitting on the shoulders of a much smaller, slighter man. It is The Orange Plague, the satirical work by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, presented this week inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
About 2.6 metres tall and covered in 23-carat gold leaf, the work places Trump at the centre of a scene built around a few highly recognisable symbols: in one hand he holds a golf club, while in the other he holds a set of scales, a reference to justice. At the feet of the figure supporting him, there is instead a small globe turned into a golf ball.
The title, The Orange Plague, makes the political nature of the work clear from the outset. Galschiøt presents the sculpture as a critique of the Trump administration’s policies, particularly with regard to the climate crisis and the international order. The artist explained that he wants to use satire to address issues that, in his view, political language struggles to express openly.
The figure’s nudity is not just a provocative choice. Galschiøt states that he was inspired by The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, the fairy tale in which a ruler convinced of his own greatness parades in front of everyone without realising that he is, in fact, naked. Here the reference becomes a metaphor for power: Trump appears covered in gold, but at the same time stripped of any clothing. The contrast between the preciousness of the material and the vulnerability of nudity makes the grotesque nature of the representation even more evident.
The position of the two bodies also contributes to the reading of the work. The monumental Trump is physically carried by a slender figure, crushed under his weight. On the pedestal, the scene is accompanied by the words attributed to the “Orange Plague”: “I am sitting on a man’s shoulders. He is sinking under my weight. I will do everything to help him. Except get off his shoulders.”
The sculpture’s presence in Strasbourg does not stem from a commission by the European institution. The exhibition was promoted by Danish MEP Per Clausen, who invited Galschiøt to bring the work to the Parliament. The choice of location, however, adds a further layer to the provocation: an explicitly political sculpture is placed right inside one of the spaces where decisions affecting Europe are discussed.
The Orange Plague had already been presented in other political contexts, including COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and a number of demonstrations in Denmark. After Strasbourg, the artist plans to take it to COP31 in Antalya as well, scheduled for November. The sculpture is not meant to remain an isolated image, because Galschiøt has made thousands of small 3D-printed versions to distribute to visitors as “symbols of protest”, transforming the work from a temporary monument into an object meant to circulate.
For a few days, then, the European Parliament is hosting a sculpture that uses irony and excess to stage a precise question: how much weight can those who keep supporting power bear?
