Outspoken Chinese artist to fill void left by Denmark's Little Mermaid

Chinese artist and cultural critic Ai Weiwei will create a video installation to be installed in Copenhagen next year on the site where the Little Mermaid usually sits.

The Little Mermaid, one of the city's most famous statues, is off to Shanghai to be displayed at a World Expo in 2010. It is to be the centrepiece of the Danish pavilion.

The Danish Expo secretariat announced Tuesday that Ai's project had been selected after a design competition toreplace the Little Mermaid.

Ai participated in designing Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium but later disassociated himself from the project, saying the Olympics were a "pretend smile" that China presented to the world.

He was an outspoken critic of the Olympics and has also criticized China's response to last year's earthquakes.

Ai, who was sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution,studied film in Beijing with Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, before becoming an avant-garde artist.

His work has been exhibited all over the world, including Documenta 12 and the Venice Biennale. Danish officials didn't describe his video project, but said it"registers, documents and articulates the movements and changes that take place during the months when the mermaid is away."

"We picked his project because it thematized the loan of the sculpture, the content of his piece is that the mermaid is gone," said Maria Fabricius Hansen of the Danish secretariat.

Many Danes are not thrilled to have the Little Mermaid, created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen, leave the country, however, Copenhagen's city council approved the plan to have the sculpture travel to China.