Artists' Feud Over 'Blackest Black' Escalates

The guy hoarding it somehow got his hands on 'pinkest pink'
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 1, 2017 7:59 AM CST
Artists' Feud Over 'Pinkest Pink' Escalates
Well, that escalated quickly.   (Anish Kapoor / Instagram)

Ever since British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor was granted exclusive rights to the color "Vantablack," the world's blackest black that was developed by tech firm Nanosystems and can absorb more than 99% of light, other artists have been up in arms. One paint fight actually broke out between Kapoor and Stuart Semple, an artist who's spent the past several years developing the world's pinkest pink. Upset by Kapoor's hoarding of Vantablack, he released his pinkest pink with a serious asterisk: that anyone purchasing it sign an actual legal document at checkout confirming that they are neither Kapoor nor an associate of Kapoor, reports the Independent. Now the fight has hit a new low, with Kapoor posting to Instagram last week an image of his middle finger coated in Semple's pink and the caption, "Up yours."

It's unclear how he managed to acquire the pink that he was specifically banned from obtaining, but Semple has already worked up his own retaliation against Kapoor by releasing a glitter he calls "the world's most glittery glitter," or to be more exact, "the most reflective natural art material in existence," reports the Creators Project. "Diamond Dust" comes with not only the same legal document barring Kapoor but also a warning, because it's made with tiny shards of glass—a high-grade variety that boasts 99.8% clarity and, Semple says, "isn't any normal glitter!" It took eight years to develop, with the help of a chemical company. Semple adds that Kapoor isn't "getting a grain of this glitter until he stops acting like such a rotter and shares the mega black!" (A renowned British artist has married a rock.)

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