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Not in Copenhagen, but in the small town of Asaa: A new version of the little mermaid created in 2016
Photo: Henning Bagger / imago images / Ritzau Scanpix
It is only 125 centimeters small and yet one of Denmark's most famous works of art: the figure of the little mermaid in Copenhagen.
All the greater is the anger that an artist and stonemason has now gotten himself into.
Palle Moerk dared to carve his own version of the character from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale and exhibit it at the port of the small town of Asaa.
The heirs of the artist Edvard Eriksen, the creator of the original, don't like that at all. They demand 37,000 Danish kroner (around 5000 euros) as reparation, as well as the destruction of the figure. The case is still with the lawyers and not with the court.
For years, the heirs of Alice Eriksen, the artist's granddaughter, have threatened anyone who dares to use the public figure for their own art with a lawsuit. The Danish Wikipedia edition still does not dare to show a photo of the figure, there is only a white spot. Most recently, it hit the Danish daily »Berlingske«, which dared to show an illustration of the little mermaid with a zombie face and a Danish flag on its opinion page. A court ordered the newspaper to pay the equivalent of almost 40,000 euros, which sparked discussions in Denmark about the status of freedom of expression.
Even the heirs could not prevent the character's painful story.
Her body parts have already been sawed off three times, twice her head and once her right arm.
She was sprayed with paint, painted and thrown from her rock.
The figure has been restored over and over again.
It is only a copy anyway;
The Eriksen heirs keep the original in an unknown location.
How it will go with the version by Palle Moerk has not yet been determined.
It differs unmistakably from the original, is made of stone instead of bronze and is much more compact and strong.
So there can be no question of plagiarism.
Will that save the figure?
Moerk is shocked by the threat of legal action.
He told the New York Times: “I thought we weren't destroying works of art in Denmark.
I thought the Taliban did something like that. "
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