In August 2016, in the middle of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, five life-size statues appeared overnight in different parts of the United States. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle awoke to the same image: a completely naked depiction of the then-Republican candidate.
The installation bore a title as direct as it was impossible to ignore: “The Emperor Has No Balls”, a reference to the tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Christian Andersen. The work was created by the art collective INDECLINE, which presented the sculptures as a satire of Trump’s public persona and his image of power.
The statues were installed without authorization and quickly became a street spectacle. In New York, hundreds of people flocked to Union Square to pose for photos alongside the figure, while images began circulating widely on social media.
The sculptures’ fame, however, was short-lived. Authorities removed the installations and, according to reports at the time, some remained on display for only about an hour before disappearing from the streets.
The episode thus became one of the most striking artistic interventions of that campaign: five naked Trumps, five cities, and thousands of photographs before authorities could make them disappear.