We've said it before -- Design is not Art. I came across a recent piece of "art" that has me thanking the powers that be for making designers a different breed from artists.

Costa Rican artist, Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas, recently put a starving dog on display in an art gallery as a work of art entitled Eres Lo Que Lees (You are what you read). The dog, a stray captured from the streets of Managua, Nicaragua, was kept on a short leash in the gallery and deprived of food and water. As if that weren't bad enough, the title of the "exhibit" was written on the wall of the gallery in dog food.

It's unclear whether the dog is dead or alive, but that almost seems besides the point--what gives this so-called artist the right to abuse animals for his "art?" The Costa Rican authorities are nonchalant--they've selected Vargas to represent the country in an upcoming art exhibit, the “Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008." There's an online petition to have Vargas banned from the Bienal.

When it comes to design, purpose and function are a necessity. For art, purpose and function are optional. Art is free to be pointless, cruel and inhuman. Thank God, then, that design is not art.