Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees, a rhinoceros sculpture covered in currency with gold horns and feet

Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees

Pacific Design Center
On View Now

The Work

Rhinos Don’t
Grow on Trees

Midas Hart

Genuine US currency, 24 karat gold leaf, resin, and fiberglass

L135 × H67 × W45 in (L343 × H170 × W114 cm)

One of a kind

Close-up detail of currency and 24 karat gold leaf on Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees

Artist Statement

Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees is a work about value: how we assign it and how we pursue it.

Layered both physically and metaphorically, an endangered animal is enveloped in currency, its horns covered in gold. The work examines the tension between what is deeply sacred and what is transactional, reflecting our tendency to look at the world and see not simply life, but what we can extract from it. It becomes something to possess, trade, or consume.

The golden horn embodies this inquiry. Its preciousness honors the animal itself while reflecting the monetary and symbolic value humans have projected onto it. What makes the rhino precious in human eyes can also become a reason for its destruction.

Yet money itself remains unresolved. It can finance exploitation or preservation, destruction or repair. What appears to consume the rhino may also protect it.

Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees installed at the Denis Bloch Fine Art booth at the LA Art Show
LA Art Show, 2019 · Presented by Denis Bloch Fine Art

Selected Exhibitions

2020–2022

Beverly Center

Los Angeles, California

2020–2021

The Lost Warhols

Los Angeles, California

Exhibition Centerpiece

2016

Animal History Museum

Burbank, California

Exhibition Centerpiece

Curated by Chuck Wolf, The Wolf Fine Art

2016

Malibu City Hall

Malibu, California

2016

City of West Hollywood

West Hollywood, California

Collection History

2022–2026

Private Collection

Los Angeles, California

2019–2020

Private Collection

Los Angeles, California

2016–2019

Private Collection

Los Angeles, California

About

Midas Hart is a contemporary artist working primarily in conceptual installation and mixed media. The practice begins with a question: has humanity lost sight of what is valuable?

Before establishing an artistic practice, Hart worked behind the scenes in entertainment and fashion. Close contact with high-profile individuals and organizations offered a direct view into how money, status, publicity, and influence shape perceptions of worth.

An extended period of world travel, meditation, and introspection prompted a reassessment of those measures of success. How much of what we value depends on social constructs and the stories we attach to them?

Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees installed in the Pacific Design Center lobby
Rhinos Don’t Grow on Trees at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, California.

Press

Midas Hart’s 11-Foot Rhino Covered in U.S. Currency and Gold Goes on View in Los Angeles

Midas Hart’s one-of-a-kind sculpture confronts the uneasy relationship between money, value and the natural world.

Read the press release

Contact

Inquiries

For private acquisitions, exhibitions, institutional placement, or press inquiries, please contact studio@midashart.com.