I'm not an artist, nor do I understand art. Despite this (or maybe because of it), I'll jump in and offer a few thoughts.
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This reminds me of that artist who let a dog starve to death as a piece of art work. To me that was truly sickening. I can understand the idea: in the street the dog would starve and no-one would give a damn. In an art gallery, it’s an outrage”. I still don’t like it as art. To me, it goes too far. It is a perversion of what art can be. When we see these kinds of actions put forward as art, we can’t help but feel sickened by it. Has the world gone mad? Probably.
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To refrain from or prohibit this kind of act precludes us from its benefits. There is the reasonable position of valuing the proper treatment of an animal above the benefits of such 'art,' but there is also the possibility of allowing ethics to forever deny us any value that such art might have. In science, there is a clear distinction between theory and practice; in theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they're not. There is knowledge to be gained in testing a theory by putting it into practice. Does this distinction exist in art?
To me, the idea of abusing a dog for the sake of art is abhorrent. But so is the idea of forever passing up an opportunity, however small, to grow, to advance, to enlighten ourselves. Can this opportunity be reached instead through ethical means? Is what I describe an important/necessary function of art, or am I conflating art with science?