[Art and Painting] The fight for the world's blackest black paint that results in the world's pinkest pink available to all but one person.

This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).

The story I am going to be telling you today involves a lot of jealousy, some drama and most importantly, lots of pettiness. I’m going to talk about the drama surrounding the infamous Vantablack, which, at the time, was the blackest substance in the world.

It was created in 2014 by a nanotechnology lab to be used in engineering projects, particularly regarding space (it can help telescopes and cameras by absorbing stray light, among other things). Here’s some pictures of how stuff painted with this substance actually looks like-- I promise you, it’s not photoshop. This thing is actually pretty amazing, as it absorbs 99.965% of visible light. As you can guess, this substance was quite the discovery and it became quite rare not only due to its copyright but also due to its relative toxicity, or at the very least heavy duty usage.

Naturally, the art world was gaga over it and wanted to be able to use it. However, it was not something available to the public, much less to the art world which I assume isn’t the main interest of most scientists. That was, until a spray version of it called Vantablack S-VIS was licensed exclusively to Anish Kapoor in 2016. Who is that, you may add? He’s a famous indian sculptor and artist. Did I also mention that he’s one of the richest artists in the world? Well, his cash made it so that this spray paint was licensed for use exclusively for him and his studio. No one else could get it. And believe me, they tried, but they were quickly turned away by the company who made the product.

Of course, everyone was quite angry at this. Artist all over the world were expressing their disappointment at this licensing. Christian Furr, a british artist commissioned to paint the Queen, called black “the dynamite of the art world” (x) and that it was unfair for only one man to be able to use it.

However, no one was angrier than british artist Stuart Semple. So angry in fact, that he retaliated by creating a paint himself named the World’s Pinkest Pink, in which you’re required to basically pinky promise that you’re not Anish Kapoor, have nothing to do with him, or are not planning on buying it for him. Here’s a link to the store page where you can clearly see the disclaimer, and a video of him in his youtube channel explaining his reasoning. For those who don’t want to click the link, it reads:

*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into that hands of Anish Kapoor.

#ShareTheBlack

That in itself it’s pretty ballsy, as basically Kapoor is not someone to fuck with. So much so, museums and people who have worked with him declined to say anything about him in regards to the Vantablack license.

Unfortunately, Semple’s efforts were quite futile as Kapoor managed to get a hold of this paint and posted a picture on instagram giving it the middle finger.

Fear not, though! As Semple’s pettiness was not yet defeated. He then came up with a very black acrylic paint, called Black 3.0 (here’s a picture of a piece painted with it andthe youtuber I was watching that actually inspired this post). Not quite the blackest black in the world, but by Semple’s own words:

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: this is not the blackest black in the world. It is however a better black than the blackest black in the world as it is actually usable by artists.

…

*Except Anish Kapoor

At this point, Semple has many versions of his blackest black. A Black 2.0, named “The world’s mattest, flattest, black art material”, which is second to Black 3.0 in terms of blackness (absorbs 96% of visible light); Black 3.0 mentioned above (absorbs 99% of visible light); a Black 1.0 in pigment form, called “The OG” or the legacy, and a Raven black that’s part of a rainbow collection called Potion. Funny enough, this last one does NOT have a disclaimer against Kapoor! Instead it reads:

After 15 years of making his own paints, Stuart Semple has been able to formulate and release a new breed of acrylic paint. For the first time his FULL RAINBOW palette is available to all artists* can share in these incredible colours.

*YES all artists! It’s time the miserable ones had a bit more colour in their life - Stuart wants to share the rainbow with them, he thinks they need it.

I have yet to find any information about whether or not Kapoor himself cares about any of these other paints however. I don’t know why he would when he holds the blackest paint already. I have also yet to find if he has commented anything else beyond that one instagram post.

At first I thought this was fun and amicable banter… But at this point I think it’s truly just a general dislike for the guy, or at least contempt at his attitude. In an interview Semple says:

“He’s got like 40,000 Instagram followers, doesn’t follow anybody back, doesn’t write back to anybody,” Semple says. “It’s the equivalent of walking into a house party and just shouting about yourself and not having a conversation with anybody. You’d look like an idiot.”

So yeah, it’s pretty much not an amicable think. Nevertheless, the drama ends quite in the standstill, as Kapoor hasn’t pronounced himself about this issue anymore and Semple has also moved on it seems. I can’t really say who’s the winner in this, but what I can say is that I LIVE for Semple’s pettiness that continues until now, and I like his attitude. But that’s just a personal opinion.

E: u/HellaHotLancelot has graciously shared with us this post on tumblr that kind of has a follow up and TLDR of this issue, as well as some memes back when saying you were going to go to these weird events on facebook was The Thing to do. I did not know about the glitter thing which I am DYING for. It’s the drama that keeps on giving despite being 4 years old.

Disclaimer

This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.

Read the original here