Can you own a color?
What if I trademarked navy blue and to be able to use it everyone would have to pay me royalties? Artists would be mad about it! What if it was a brand new color that is the “blackest black” in the world? Well if you are artist Anish Kapoor you can. Technically, his blackest black color is not a paint. And technically he really only has exclusive rights to use it as art material. But oh boy did it cause a controversy! This is a long one but I find it super interesting!
Vantablack (the name of the controversial color) is actually a “light suppression coating technology”, not technically a color but a material. It was made by Surrey NanoSystems in 2014 and is made of “vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.965% of all visible light”. Since it is an invention, it can be copyrighted. And Anish Kapoor paid a LOT of money to the company to be the only artist able to use it. If Anish Kapoor sounds somewhat familiar he is the artist behind the Bean (technically named “Cloud Gate”) in Chicago. There are a lot of “technicallys” in this because what we call things vs what they legally are makes a big difference here. Ok so Anish Kapoor has sole artistic use of Vantablack. Why does anyone care? Well, because it looks like this…
Enter Stuart Semple, an artist who was reaalllyyy mad about the whole thing. So he did what any normal person would do and in 2016 released a new pigment he called the “Pinkest Pink”. If you buy it on his website you have to sign this legal rider:
“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 the hands of Anish Kapoor.”
Kapoor did get a hold of it and posted a reply photo on Instagram with his middle finger dipped in the paint. This feud went back and forth for a while but in 2019 was made pointless. MIT produced and unveiled a new black “material” that absorbs 99.995% of light. The diamond in the first picture is coated in it and looks like a black hole in the second picture. They released this statement along with their black: “The project can also be interpreted as a statement against British artist Anish Kapoor’s purchase of exclusive rights to a formula of carbon nanotubes as a material for artworks. Strebe and Wardle use a different composition of carbon nanotubes, which will be available for any artist to use.” Didn’t expect that statement from MIT but its hilarious.
These groups are continuing to try to make even more blackest black materials today. Why though? Not for artwork (although it is a fun side use) but actually for a lot of other reasons. Primarily for instruments sent into space. NASA uses Vantablack as a coating for their spacecraft instruments to be able to dilute light pollution that contaminates readings. This is due to its light absorption, thermal conduction and high value shock resistance. There are of course other companies that use it for the color - the military uses it for enhancing stealth aircrafts, a very fancy watch company MCT uses it on their dials, BMW painted a car in it for advertising, and many other things.
Unfortunately Vantablack is super expensive and only available commercially (except to Anish Kapoor). If you would like to use extremely black black yourself, try out Black 4.0! Sadly, it only absorbs 99% of light instead of 99.995%. 😂
If you want to buy Black 4.0
References/More Info:
https://blog.artsper.com/en/a-closer-look/blackest-black/
https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
