Denmark now has two Little Mermaids. The famous one is suing.
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, October 6, 2024


Denmark now has two Little Mermaids. The famous one is suing.
Tourist pose for photos at the granite mermaid in Asaa, Denmark, on Aug. 12, 2021. The heirs of the artist behind a Copenhagen landmark want a similar statue in Asaa torn down. And they want compensation, too. Carsten Snejbjerg/The New York Times.

by Lisa Abend



ASAA (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On a blustery day last week, Tina Pedersen and Jens Poulsen, two Danish vacationers, posed for pictures beside a statue of a mermaid. In some ways, the sculpture seemed familiar: Perched by a harbor, the mermaid rested the weight of her bare torso on one arm, and draped her piscine tail delicately over a rock. Yet Pedersen and Poulsen were not in Copenhagen; they were on their way to a beach vacation on the other side of Denmark.

“We heard on the radio that the estate of ‘The Little Mermaid’ was demanding that this one be destroyed,” said Pedersen. “So we thought we better come see it while we still could.”

The mermaid that has watched over the harbor in the village of Asaa, in the north of Denmark, since 2016 is not an exact replica of the landmark in Denmark’s capital. But for the heirs of Edvard Eriksen, the artist who sculpted the Copenhagen statue, the Asaa mermaid bears too close a resemblance. They have initiated legal proceedings, demanding not just financial compensation, but that the sculpture in Asaa be torn down as well.

“When I first received the email, I laughed,” said Mikael Klitgaard, the mayor of Broenderslev, the municipality that includes Asaa. “I thought it was a joke.”

But the Eriksen estate is not fooling around. It has a long history of zealously protecting its licensing rights to the image of the sculpture, which represents a character from a Hans Christian Andersen story. Reached by phone, Alice Eriksen, the artist’s granddaughter and overseer of the estate, declined to comment. “The case is ongoing,” she said.

Lawyers on both sides are still negotiating, but if the case goes to court, the ruling will likely turn on how closely the Asaa mermaid resembles the one that has sat in Langelinie harbor in Copenhagen since 1913, when brewing magnate and philanthropist Carl Jacobsen presented it to the city as a gift. That sculpture, which is one of Copenhagen’s most visited tourist attractions, is made of bronze, and features a diminutive mermaid who rests her weight on her right arm while tucking her tail neatly to the other side.

Carved from granite and weighing 3 tons, the Asaa mermaid is plumper, and her facial features coarser. Her posture, however, is the same.

“How else is she going to sit?” asked Klitgaard. “She’s a mermaid. You can’t put her in a chair.”

The Asaa mermaid was created by Palle Moerk, a local artist and stonemason who carves both gravestones and figurative sculptures; among the latter, pigs, owls and human hands making gestures (both obscene and not) are favored themes. He had sculpted the mermaid four years before she was purchased by a group of Asaa citizens and donated to the organization that runs the harbor to commemorate its 140th anniversary.

In an interview, the artist said he resented the accusation that he copied the mermaid from Eriksen. “As an artist, you take in all kinds of things — and of course, I had seen pictures of the Langelinie mermaid,” Moerk explained. “But this was my own inspiration.”

Having purchased a large piece of granite, he had kept it in his yard, uncertain of what to carve from it. But late one night the muse hit, and he quickly sketched the mermaid on paper he kept by his bed for just such moments. “Sometimes the stone speaks to you,” he said.




The thought that his mermaid may be obliterated troubles him, he said. “I didn’t think we destroyed art works in Denmark. That’s something the Taliban do.”

Although the Eriksen estate is seeking only 37,000 Danish crowns, about $6,000 in compensation, both Moerk and Klitgaard said they felt the suit was motivated by greed. The estate’s copyright will expire in 2029 — 70 years after the death of the artist — and the Broenderslev mayor said he thinks they may be “trying to get paid before then. There are a lot of situations where they’ve gotten money for this kind of thing.”

There are indeed. As early as 1937, Eriksen successfully sued a Danish handicraft company for producing needlepoint patterns of the mermaid, whose body was modeled on his wife, Eline.

More recently, his heirs sued the Danish newspaper Berlingske after it published images of the statue: one a cartoon of the mermaid with the face of a zombie; the other, a photograph that depicted her wearing a coronavirus mask. In 2020, the Copenhagen City Court found that the newspaper had indeed violated copyright, and imposed a fine of 285,000 crowns, about $45,000, plus court costs.

The Eriksen heirs also sued Bjoern Noergaard, an artist who has incorporated “The Little Mermaid’s” iconic likeness into his own work, such as “The Genetically Modified Little Mermaid,” a statue that now stands a few hundred meters from the original. Noergaard got into trouble with the estate in 2008, after he used a photograph of “The Little Mermaid” in a collage. But what Eriksen’s heirs had failed to recognize, he said by phone, was that “artists have always referenced other artists.”

He pointed out that when Jacobsen commissioned the original sculpture, he instructed Eriksen on how and where to position his mermaid, and even specified that he model her face on that of a dancer with whom the industrialist had become infatuated after seeing her perform in a ballet version of Andersen’s story.

“So, in this case the artist took the motif from another artist,” Noergaard said, and “the design from the customer.”

He won the case.

The village of Asaa may also take some hope from the town of Greenville, Michigan. In 2009, the Eriksen estate got wind of a Little Mermaid statue that had perched there on the banks of the Flat River for 15 years, a tribute to the town’s Danish heritage. Through the Artists Rights Society in New York, it charged the town for “unauthorized reproduction” and sued for $3,700. It later dropped the claim for unknown reasons, though it is possible that the Michigan mermaid’s dumbstruck expression and mullet-esque hairstyle — very different from her Copenhagen counterpart’s wispy braid — played a role.

With fewer than 1,200 inhabitants, Asaa will have a hard time paying any damages, the harbor’s chairman, Thomas Nymann, said. But what he most hopes to avoid is having to destroy the sculpture, he added.

“A lot of people in town donated money for it, all the shops,” he said. “They will all be very upset if we lose it.”

Klitgaard, who said that many of his small community’s citizens have expressed similar sentiments, also objected to the idea of paying compensation. “If ours was bronze, with the same height and face: OK. But they are quite different. Besides,” he said with a wink, “it’s clear she’s local. She looks just like an Asaa girl.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

August 19, 2021

Smithsonian acquires photos from first African American studios

Hiro, fashion photographer who captured the surreal, dies at 90

Denmark now has two Little Mermaids. The famous one is suing.

Tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio discovered at Porta Sarno with mummified human remains

This brain remained intact in a 310 million-year-old fossil

Exhibition features a selection of new paintings and works on paper by Robert Nava

Gladstone Gallery exhibits Bruce Nauman's Microphone/Tree Piece

Steidl announces U.S. release of 'William Eggleston: The Outlands'

Bodleian Libraries reach the milestone of 1 millionth image online for public access

Wichita Art Museum awarded $161,200 competitive grant to conserve 80 important artworks in the collection

White Cube announces representation of Minoru Nomata

Make room for the 2021 Designer Show House at the Western Design Conference

Bicoastal exhibition pays tribute to The De Luxe Show, the landmark 1971 exhibition at the DeLUXE theater in Houston

Rebooting a part of tech history: Rare, hand-built Apple-1 will hit auction block in November

Singers in the dark: Syria 'power cut video' goes viral

Frederick Fisher and Partners designs new hilltop Ojai Valley School Upper Campus

Chucky Thompson, hitmaking producer, is dead at 53

Pink Siifu, a shape-shifting musician with one demand: Don't box me in

Black in ballet: Coming together after trying to 'blend into the corps'

Stack's Bowers Galleries sells finest known 1804 silver dollar for record $7.68 million

'Prince Philip: A Celebration' display opens at the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Taymour Grahne Projects opens virtual summer group show curated by Othman Lazraq

MW Editions publishes Mulholland: An artist's love affair with the legendary Los Angeles road

Historic embroideries back on display after epic 10 year restoration

A complete guide to wearing coloured contact lenses

How to Choose the Best Online Casino?

Celebrities and Artists that Gamble Online

Poker and Art: Inspiration from Gambling

Things To Do When Playing Slots




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful