Alt for handel og PR: selv en landemerke-statue løftes fra deres pidestaller og sendes ut på vandring. Hvem kan tenke seg Langelinje uten Den lille havfrue?

Torsdag ble hun løftet opp for å sendes verden rundt, til Shanghai, der hun skal pryde den danske paviljong på Expo-utstillingen.

A video installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will replace the Little Mermaid until the statue returns in November. The multimedia artwork will include a live broadcast of the statue in Shanghai.

Created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen, the fishtailed bronze is Denmark’s most popular tourist attraction. She was unveiled in the Copenhagen harbor in August 1913 and has not been moved since, except to undergo repairs after a series of attacks by vandals.

Her international fame grew after she was beheaded in 1964. No arrests were ever made. However, a Danish artist claimed he cut off the head and threw it into a Copenhagen lake. It was never found and a new one was cast from the original mold.

Twenty years later her right arm was cut off and she was decapitated again in 1998. She’s been doused in paint on numerous occasions and in 2003 she was blown off her stone base by vandals who used explosives. The following year she was draped in a burqa, apparently by critics of Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

In Andersen’s tale, the mermaid is a sea king’s daughter who falls in love with a prince and must wait 300 years to become human. It was turned into a Disney film in 1989.