The European Parliament in Strasbourg is showing Danish artist Jens Galschiøt’s “The Orange Plague.” The 2.6-metre sculpture depicts the US president naked, covered in gold leaf and sitting on the shoulders of a smaller figure.
The figure holds a golf club and the scales of justice, and the work is also known as “King of Injustice.” Galschiøt describes it as satire about what he sees as Donald Trump’s threats to international cooperation, climate policy and the rules-based world order. The composition shows the president sitting on a smaller man’s shoulders. The artist says that figure represents the burden powerful people place on those with less power. An inscription on the plinth develops the same idea: its speaker promises to help the person carrying him but refuses to get off his back.
The naked figure references Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in which a vain ruler walks through town without clothes while those around him pretend otherwise. Galschiøt says he wants to ridicule Trump and strip away the aura of authority around him. The artist also cited his “Pillar of Shame,” a memorial to victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that was removed from a Hong Kong university in 2021. He says both works concern the relationship between the powerful and the powerless.
The Strasbourg exhibition was sponsored by Danish MEP Per Clausen, a member of The Left. MEPs may hold cultural events on parliamentary premises with administrative approval, so the display does not amount to official EU endorsement. Clausen said he wanted to prompt debate about how power is used and how Europe can protect its interests without becoming dependent on Trump.
Before Strasbourg, the sculpture was shown at the Munich Security Conference and at the COP30 UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025. It was also taken to Copenhagen demonstrations in 2026 calling for Greenland to be protected from US ambitions. Around 20,000 small 3D-printed copies were distributed to visitors and European Parliament staff.
The temporary exhibition is due to close on Thursday. Galschiøt plans to show the work at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya next month. Trump has not publicly commented on the sculpture.