Midas Hart’s currency-covered rhino goes on view in Los Angeles

Contemporary artist Midas Hart’s monumental sculpture “Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees” is now on view at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. The 11-foot work uses U.S. currency and gold to spotlight the tension between wealth, value and the survival of endangered wildlife.

Why it matters: - Midas Hart’s sculpture turns wealth into a conservation warning. - The work asks viewers to consider what is lost when the living world is treated as something to extract value from. - The piece connects art, wildlife protection and public awareness around rhino conservation.

What happened: - Midas Hart’s sculpture “Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees” is on view at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California. - The rhinoceros sculpture measures more than 11 feet long. - The work is a one-of-a-kind piece created in 2016. - The sculpture is built from genuine U.S. currency, 24-karat gold leaf, resin and fiberglass.

The details: - Hart uses scale and symbols of material wealth as visual provocation. - The sculpture draws attention to an animal whose survival in the wild is increasingly precarious. - The work is presented as both a fine-art object and a meditation on value. - The artist frames the piece around the tension between what is sacred and what becomes transactional. - The sculpture questions humanity’s tendency to see the natural world through what can be extracted from it rather than through intrinsic value. - The artwork is 135 × 67 × 45 inches, or 343 × 170 × 114 cm.

Between the lines: - The sculpture’s materials mirror the very systems it critiques. - The piece links aesthetic spectacle with a broader argument about how money shapes perceptions of nature. - The timing feels pointed as threatened species continue to face wildlife trafficking, habitat loss and pressure from the commercial value of natural resources.

What's next: - Midas Hart Studio is in conversation with conservation organizations and cultural partners about extending the work beyond the exhibition. - Those talks are aimed at turning the sculpture into a catalyst for greater awareness and action around rhino conservation.

The bottom line: - Hart is using a luxury-coded object to make an urgent point: if nature is priced only for extraction, conservation loses before the conversation starts.