(via col­or­ful pigeons amongst a flock of grey at the venice bien­nale)

Artists mess­ing with ani­mals – it seems like a nev­er end­ing theme. The com­men­tary in this blog post is worth brows­ing through. Julian Char­riere and Julius von Bis­mar­ck have died pigeons in Venice so that peo­ple don’t con­sid­er them fly­ing rats anymore…

The blog post notes they’ve paint­ed these ani­mals with­out harm­ing them. Some of the com­menters say paint­ing these ani­mals is harm­ful in itself. Rea­sons giv­en include: cam­ou­flage and pro­cre­ation. Oth­er com­menters are offend­ed by artists seek­ing fame by exploit­ing these ani­mals. I find the image strik­ing and would like to learn more about the actu­al process the artists uses to achieve this effect. I’m also curi­ous about the sci­en­tif­ic basis for some of the claims made by those com­menters tak­ing offense.