--- title: Naked Donald Trump Statues Populate American Cities description: An anarchist collective distributed the life-size likenesses in very public locations canonical: https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/ author: Nate Hopper article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-18T20:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:04:44.605Z article:section: Ideas og:title: See the Naked Donald Trump Statues Taking Over American Cities og:description: The project is called 'The Emperor Has No Balls' og:url: https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte97c1bbf84a8f9f7/6988a2d9a988ca5c616b9202/naked-trump-statue-union-square.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: People pose for selfies with a naked statue of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that was left in Union Square Park in New York og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See the Naked Donald Trump Statues Taking Over American Cities twitter:description: The project is called 'The Emperor Has No Balls' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte97c1bbf84a8f9f7/6988a2d9a988ca5c616b9202/naked-trump-statue-union-square.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Naked Donald Trump Statues Populate American Cities  by [Nate Hopper](https://time.com/author/nate-hopper/)  ## Nate Hopper Aug 18, 2016 8:00 PM UTC  People pose for selfies with a naked statue of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that was left in Union Square Park in New York City on Aug. 18, 2016. People pose for selfies with a naked statue of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that was left in Union Square Park in New York City on Aug. 18, 2016.Brendan McDermid—Reuters  by [Nate Hopper](https://time.com/author/nate-hopper/)  ## Nate Hopper Aug 18, 2016 8:00 PM UTC In New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Cleveland, life-size statues of Donald Trump in the nude stand in public. They were placed there by the anarchist collective Indecline, which among other projects [has also glued the names of black men killed by police officers](http://thisisindecline.com/flicks/blacklivesmatter-hollywood) onto blank stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Trump project is titled after a genital omission each statue shares, “The Emperor Has No Balls.” It’s an escalation of [Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 parable](http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes%5Fe.html) about a ruler so overconfident that he believes he’s wearing the world’s finest clothes, even when parading in the nude through his realm, beneath “his splendid canopy”—until a child breaks his delusion. The artist who constructed the statues goes by the name Ginger and is a regular keynote speaker at haunted house conventions. [He told the Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/18/anarchists-unveil-naked-donald-trump-statues-in-several-u-s-cities/?tid=sm%5Ffb), “When the \[Indecline organization\] approached me, it was all because of my monster-making abilities.” According to the _Post_, he spent 25 hours weekly since receiving the commission in April, and worked through 300 pounds of clay and silicone, to construct the statues. A video of the process seems to show at one stage there was a human model: Ginger, who has physically and mentally handicapped family members, told the paper, “The straw that broke the camel’s back was [when \[Trump\] made fun of the disabled reporter from the New York _Times_](http://time.com/4127857/donald-trump-disability/).” Trump has a history of [taking offense](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/graydon-carter-donald-trump) to [commentary on his anatomy](http://gawker.com/now-peter-thiels-lawyer-wants-to-silence-reporting-on-t-1781918385) and has [discussed the matter himself in a nationally televised debate](http://time.com/4247366/republican-debate-donald-trump-small-hands-penis/). In New York, park employees have removed the statue from the city’s bustling Union Square park. The likeness then rode through the city in an uncovered pickup truck. **_Update:_** _The New York City Parks Department_ [_sent Gothamist the following statement about the removal of the structure_](http://gothamist.com/2016/08/18/naked%5Fdonald%5Ftrump%5Fstatue.php#photo-1)_: “NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.”_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/"},"headline":"Naked Donald Trump Statues Populate American Cities","datePublished":"2016-08-18T20:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:04:44.605Z","description":"An anarchist collective distributed the life-size likenesses in very public locations","url":"https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/","keywords":["Art","politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte97c1bbf84a8f9f7/6988a2d9a988ca5c616b9202/naked-trump-statue-union-square.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nate Hopper","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nate-hopper/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte97c1bbf84a8f9f7/6988a2d9a988ca5c616b9202/naked-trump-statue-union-square.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"People pose for selfies with a naked statue of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that was left in Union Square Park in New York","caption":"People pose for selfies with a naked statue of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that was left in Union Square Park in New York City on Aug. 18, 2016.","creditText":"Brendan McDermid—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/art/","name":"Art"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4458022/donald-trump-nude-statues/","name":"Naked Donald Trump Statues Populate American Cities"}}]}] ```