No one seems to be able to tell if this is a hoax or not. Even the strongest debunkers aren't really sure, including the humane organisations.

The story is that an artist named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas caught a stray dog from the streets, put a rope around its neck, tied it to a corner of a museum exhibition room, and left it there without food or any other life-necessities until it died of hunger, in full view of the public, with slogans on the wall above lettered in dried dogfood pellets.   

Plenty of pictures, for what that's worth - a YouTube clip which gives mostly the wall-messages, and elsewhere a series of stills (the same few shots - who took them?) showing a dog in the stages of starvation, a fur-covered skeleton of an animal which in itself can't be faked, however he got that way.

Google " Guillermo Habacuc Vargas " and take a look around.

The truly objective observers - SPCA and the like - can't say exactly what took place. Some blogs are outraged, there are petitions in every language, and other sites cynically dismiss it as a hoax - but that comes down to being no more than their personal opinions. No reliable source has been able to confirm facts one way or the other. The only reports that this was a publicity stunt come from Vargas and the museum. But after all the fury, they would, wouldn't they? They've never produced the one thing which would prove their case - the live dog. What happened to it, if it didn't die? Oh, right, it ran away - on those emaciated, weak legs, from that large public building. The only evidence of their innocence and they lose it. My other car's a Porsche.

Snopes has classified it as Undetermined

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/vargas.asp   

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/starving-dog-art.shtml

So what do you think? True? False?   

In any case it's disturbing that Vargas could use an animal in this way, even if the most lurid details are exaggerated - they're built on SOMEthing. And then go on to be honored by the Costa Rican Ministry of Art & Culture as their country's representative at an important Central American exhibition. Even if no more animals are mistreated/killed - and the jury's still out on that one - he's sure got himself a lot of attention. At the very least I don't think he deserves to profit from it but he probably will.