04/12/2025
🖤 Vantablack vs 💗Pinkest Pink
Proof that even colour can start a full-blown art drama.
In 2016, artist Anish Kapoor invented a new pigment, the darest black on the planet. He secured a deal that granted him sole access to Vantablac. This is a pigment so intensely dark it swallows 99.96% of visible light. 🌑
The art world… was not impressed. Many felt no single creator should control a material that revolutionary.
In response, Stuat Semple released the Pinkest Pink, a colour so violently bright it practically screamed off the canvas. It blew up instantly.
But the best is: he made it available to everyone… except Kapoor.
Buyers even had to confirm they weren’t Kapoor or acting on his behalf!!!
Kapoor eventually got hold of some and posted a now-infamous photo of his middle finger coated in Pinkest Pink
🖕💖fanning the flames and sending the feud viral.
Semple clapped back with even more creations: Black 2.0, Black 3.0, Diamond Dust, and a whole collection of colours all cheekily labelled with warnings excluding Kapoor.
What started as a spat over who gets to use what pigment turned into a global conversation about artistic freedom, ownership, and who gets access to creativity.
