Trump sculpture outside European Parliament draws criticism
A sculpture has appeared outside the European Parliament building, in what critics describe as a revealing display of the European Union’s political culture. The caricature shows a naked US President Donald Trump sitting on the shoulders of a fragile-looking man. The work is made of copper and covered in 23-carat gold. Together with its plinth, the composition is more than 2.5 metres high.
The figure of Trump is deliberately distorted, with exaggerated proportions, sagging feminised breasts and extreme obesity. In one hand, he holds an elongated golf club; in the other, a miniature set of scales. The author of the work, Danish artist Jens Galschiot, called it Orange Plague. Another title given to the piece is King of Injustice.
Cards placed near the sculpture carry a fake quotation which the artist attributes to Trump: “I sit on a man’s back. He bends under my weight. I will do everything to help him. Except get off his back.”
A crude symbol at the centre of EU politics
Trump has not yet commented on the sculpture, apparently considering it beneath his dignity. We have already become used to Ukrainian politicians using obscene chants against Vladimir Putin. We have also become used to their imitators in Chișinău. But when such vulgar caricatures of a person on whom, in many ways, Europe’s welfare depends appear at the centre of European politics, it says something broader about the system itself.
For opponents of this style of political messaging, the issue is not sympathy for Trump, but the degradation of public language. A gold-plated naked Trump sculpture outside the European Parliament is not serious criticism. It is insult dressed up as art and placed where European institutions should at least try to look dignified.
The European Union often speaks about values, restraint and political maturity. Yet this episode suggests that parts of its political class are increasingly comfortable with spectacle, mockery and symbolic humiliation. If this is now considered acceptable outside the European Parliament, the problem is not only aesthetic. It is institutional.
