The Emperor Has No Balls is a series of sculptures depicting a nudeDonald Trump, the then Republican presidential nominee, by the activist art collectiveIndecline.
The five statues were installed inCleveland,Los Angeles,New York City,San Francisco, andSeattle in 2016. Their collective installation was executed by 40 people;Rolling Stone described the precision with which the sculptures were erected: "At exactly 11 in each city – 8 a.m. on the West Coast – two people dressed as construction workers carried out a 6-foot-5 [195 cm], 80-pound [36 kg] object under a blue tarp, brushed away detritus from the ground, spread a thin layer of fast-acting, industrial-strength epoxy, held the object upright for a matter of seconds, and walked away, disappearing into the gathering crowds."[1]
The statues, made using clay andsilicone, depicted the former president withabdominal obesity, an "old man saggy butt", varicose veins, a "constipated" expression, amicropenis andanorchia, and were titledThe Emperor Has No Balls on engraved plates at the base; they were commissioned from Joshua "Ginger" Monroe, a Las Vegas artist who designs monsters forhaunted houses andhorror films.[2][3][4][5][6] The Cleveland statue was in the Coventry section ofCleveland Heights; it was taken down within an hour.[2][7] The New York statue, inUnion Square, was removed early that afternoon; theNew York City Parks Department made a statement that it "stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small".[8][6][7][9] A bystander bit a piece out of thehair of the San Francisco statue, which was in theCastro District;[10] it was removed early the next day,[11] at a cost of about $4,000 because of damage to the sidewalk.[7] The Seattle statue, which was inCapitol Hill, was claimed by avintage store, No Parking on Pike,[12][13] and the Los Angeles statue, onHollywood Boulevard, by a local art gallery, Wacko,[2] both before authorities could remove them.
The following month, two more naked Trump statues, commissioned by a New Jersey arts collective, were installed on the roof of a warehouse overlooking the New Jersey entrance to theHolland Tunnel, where Indecline also placed an inverted US flag, and on top of a billboard in theWynwood section of Miami;[14] the Miami statue, which Indecline said was the same one originally placed in New York, was later moved by police request closer to the Wynwood Walls graffiti center.[15][16]
