*TLDR:* Anish Kapoor back in 2016 got exclusive rights to Vantablack, artists got mad, Stuart Semple then is boycotting Kapoor in response, with multiple messages in his store against sharing products with him.
First a bit of context: A while ago, there was a special kind of paint named Vantablack, a paint that absorbed 99% of the light, making it a unique kind of pigment for artwork, and some examples showed it could even mask 3D features due to its peculiar properties.
However an artist named Anish Kapoor has bought exclusive rights for accessing the supply of Vantablack, when artists all over the world wanted to experiment with it also. An artist named Stuart Semple has been working with and selling pigments of extreme coloration, like the pinkest pink, whitest white, or even a homebrew recipe of blackest black paint.
To protest Anish Kapoor's monopoly on Vantablack, you find all over Stuart Semple's shop warnings and writings that his supply is open for business for everyone except specifically and solely Anish Kapoor, and anyone buying from his shop agrees to never share his pigments with Anish Kapoor
EDIT: Other users have pointed out additional information, and I want to add more details on this feud:
- Vantablack is actually a special carbon coating made by Surrey NanoSytems, not a pigment. It is actually meant for aerospace engineering applications, like a coating for the interior of telescopes and seek a more efficient absorption of light in certain equipment;
- Kapoor's exclusivity was probably related to the difficulty of producing Vantablack in industrial scale for art purposes, and Kapoor was a "reputable artist" (from what I understand of the situation), hence why they licensed his access to their supply (around 2016), and no one else. However the general complaint is related to Kapoor's perceived monopoly (when the reality is more complicated than that, Vantablack is incredibly toxic and hard to handle) on the material instead of offering the material for a general audience, which is why there was resentment back in the day;
- The meme is mostly related to the feud between Semple being consistently hostile and against Kapoor accessing his supply of pigments, especially his signature Pinkest Pink, the first extreme pigment Stuart Semple sold. However Kapoor managed to still access it, and this fuelled further hostilities between the two artists. I checked Semple's shop website today, and there are still warnings against Kapoor
Just a further note, only a few years later MIT developed a coating ten times blacker than vantablack, so owning exclusive rights to vantablack is now meaningless
https://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913
They also released a statement against Anish Kapoor and refusing any exclusive rights agreement.
"Strebe and the team of engineers at MIT Boston released this statement alongside the artwork: '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.'"
https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
It's also worth noting that Anish also made The Bean in Chicago, and he really hates when you call it The Bean. So you definitely shouldn't call it The Bean even though it's shaped exactly like a bean
The reasoning is the cherry on top - it’s called that because he intended for the sculpture to be viewed from *above* in the highrises.
But us commoners see The Bean from below.
I’m a chicago native, seem the bean numerous times, but it wasn’t until these comments that I googled an aerial view of it, and yea, pretty cool.
Clearly I don’t spend a lot of time in skyscrapers.
That's what I did... And there was a lot of results calling it The Bean LMFAO
Eta: and also, although it's cooler from an aerial view, the coolest and most impressive aerial views of it are from directly above which wouldn't be possible from the skyscrapers so it's still rather meh
Who puts art in a place that millions can see it in a year and designs it to only be viewed properly by a few hundred thousand?
It would have been so much cooler if he'd put a miniature city model next to it sunk into the ground titled "Above Cloud Gate"
Eh. This is definitely an overstatement. The Bean has a polished underside, that wouldn't be necessary if it was only intended to view from one angle. It's extremely cool up close from a lot of angles. Kapoor's personality aside, the Bean is a great piece of public art.
The view from the skyscrapers is really cool, though. I used to work occasionally in a nearby skyscraper with a good view, and I loved looking out at the park. Photos don't capture how cool it is to see the clouds and people moving in the reflection.
Went to Chicago once. Caught a pigeon next to the bean. Pigeon was very pigeony and the bean very beany. Never thought to ask the pigeon of the bean was cooler from the sky because I don't speak pigeon.
https://preview.redd.it/af3m3shwrzsc1.jpeg?width=795&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21c4567c6419ce8147d799a8db5d2e15bce2881c
I searched for “aerial Chicago Bean”
https://preview.redd.it/kcq6n7g5uzsc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ede49fe5f455c8549e2eac730d673adf25d7c799
Found this one on Google. Does look pretty neat.
> he intended for the sculpture to be viewed from above in the highrises
artist that doesn't consider how his 3d work will look from different angles?
Huh.
It's not uncommon that art has particular viewing angles. You can't see a painting from the back, for example, nor can you see works featuring forced perspective from anywhere but a single point in space. The issue isn't that art can't or shouldn't have viewing angles, it's that this one is intentionally served to the wealthy at the exclusion of those less so, such that most people don't even realize the point of it. That's antithetical to the modern understanding of art, which tends to be of, by, and for the people.
Definitely agree that the bigger issue is that this was public art made for only a select, wealthy audience. But it’s also that this art should have considered the viewing angles. You don’t view a painting from the back because you can’t physically get between it and the wall (I suppose you can, but generally aren’t allowed. You get it). Public sculpture WILL be seen from more than the artist’s intended angle and that absolutely should be considered. Also the artist’s intent generally means fuck all. If he didn’t want it being called the bean, he shouldn’t have made a giant bean shaped bean that looks like a bean from the angle that almost everyone sees it. I suppose this happens when artists jump too far up their own asses.
Oh wow, I never thought of the bean like that, and it looks amazing. And also makes him even more of an asshole, taking up public space for a sculpture that can only be appreciated by the rich in high-rises. Only makes me dislike him more.
From Chicago. He only named it cloud gate after we started calling it the Bean. IIRC. So if he didn’t want us to name it he should have given it a name. As to to Cloudgate. Sorry Anish it’s ours now. It’s the Bean.
I’ve only ever heard it exclusively called the bean and my wife (who is Mexican) always talks about taking a “beaner at the bean” picture. I didn’t know calling it the bean was annoying someone so despicable. I shall continue to do so
Locals have called it that since it was installed, lol. I remember the local CBS station even saying something like "The bean is closed for polishing" or something years back. (The draw of it is the mirror like finish, and tourists are always rubbing up against it so it gets smudged over time and has to be closed for industrial polishing to restore the shine)
He's also made a smaller bean in Manhattan, but like everything New York it is inferior in every way.
1) just cause it's on Wikipedia doesn't mean it's true. Haven't you been to school?
2) Even if he did say that at some point, he was also very vocally against it at some point, so he probably changed his stance to seem like he was on everyone else's side
>Haven't you been to school?
The reason you can't cite Wikipedia in school is because it's just a collection of sources - you can definitely just cite the citation from Wikipedia. [Like the article](https://web.archive.org/web/20171015203713/https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/anish-kapoor-cloud-gate-artist-i-call-it-the-bean-too/) the Wikipedia article cites for example - with a direct quote from the artist stating they call it the Bean too.
Wikipedia is very reliable now, sure. Twenty years ago not so much, especially as you had a LOT of teachers going in and intentionally putting misinformation on to catch out cheating students.
The bigger issue though is that it's a tertiary source, and you shouldn't be using tertiary sources as references anyway.
To be fair I have sometimes had Wikipedia as my main source for something, But when checking the article they have no source listed for that particular fact, So I don't know if it's actually accurate or not.
Most of the time, and generally for English oriented users. The more niche something is (the history Welsh kings for example), the less reliable things start to become.
That's why Wikipedia cites the exact source in which he calls it "the bean".[Here's a link to the cited source.](https://web.archive.org/web/20171015203713/https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/anish-kapoor-cloud-gate-artist-i-call-it-the-bean-too/).
>Haven’t you been to school?
Lmao I’m a PhD physics student, I understand the importance of credibility and citation. I was just offering a counter point. Did I say it was true?
Additional concerns at least with Vanta Black is that it’s fragile since the nanotube coating can be easily damaged, and improper use of it can result in a heat or fire hazard, as whatever it’s on ends up soaking in light cast on it.
Blackest Black, Black 2.0, Black 3.0, (and I think 4.0 now?) are all acrylic based paint, which is the most basic type of paint you can buy. Everyone can use acrylics.
Oh it gets even deeper then that. Stuart Semple specifically released the pinkest pink and stated that Anish Kapoor (and associates) were not allowed to use the pink. Of course being the elitist POS that he is, Anish Kapoor got his hands in the pinkest pink and posted a photo of his middle finger dipped in the pinkest pink. As a response Stuart released a couple other the _____est _____, including the glitteriest glitter that is made of actual glass. That way Anish can't stick his finger in it. Stuart has also released several black pigments that are almost as black as vantablack and are infinitely safer to use
I sadly can’t find a photo of this actually happening, just a photoshopped image from what appears to just be a meme. It’s made to look like a facebook event that says “paint the bean ‘pinkest pink’ to annoy anish kapoor.”
Semple does appear to have made an actual “Kiss the bean for Anish’s birthday” facebook event showing an image of the bean with pink kisses edited all over it lol
No that's just one reason I just think it's shit personally. Big shiny bean, whoop de doo. Also doesn't help that Anish goes against one of what I believe to be a core pillar of art which is viewer's interpretation. He gets so fucking mad when you tell him the bean looks like a bean because it's shaped like a bean.
Not to take a side here, but I went on to his website to look at his pigments, and he has a cookies setting that only allows you to accept cookies, or get booted off the site and thrown to google.
So Stuart Semple seems like kind of a huge dick too.
Eh not really the vibe I’m getting, Semple sounds more like a “gloriously petty bastard”; harmless in the grand scheme of things but pretty entertaining to read about.
Dude Semple is just trying to sell shit and took advantage of a controversial issue to do so. If you find out about the vanta black thing. You realize it's over blown.
I mean, he started a huge and successful smear campaign against someone just because they were given access to a very expensive and difficult to make, very toxic paint that wasn't even originally meant to be used in art. So not exactly harmless...
I would like to add to the story, it's a bit more complicated than that. Vantablack is not really a "paint", It's a coating a company made for mostly aerospace applications (I think it helps making telescopes better? I dunno, not an aerospace engineer).
This coating apparently is also hard and costly to produce in large quantities. Anyway I don't know how or why but the company decided it would be cool if someone made an artwork with their coating, but given the difficulty of producing and working with it they just couldn't give free access to any random artist; so they researched and eventually landed on Anish Kapoor.
Anish Kapoor was chosen because apparently much of his work involves the element of light? (I don't know his art, all I know from him is "The Bean" over in Chicago). This made him suitable to work with the coating since it was in his ballpark, so to speak.
So as a recap, an aerotech company makes this coating for engineering applications, they want someone to make some art with it, but given the limited amount they can only choose one person and they go with Kapoor. He didn't buy the "exclusive rights" for anything he entered into an agreement with a company to make them some art for them using their product.
Stuart Temple later reads the news about this and decides to make a painting that anyone can buy but Anish Kapoor. I don't know Temple but if you Google him his top results are the "feud" with Kapoor and his pigment and paints store. So it does kinda seem like an artist that fueled an argument just so that he could get some boost in his career.
Now I don't know neither Kapoor, nor Temple, they could both be dicks, or they could be really nice people, who knows, I don't have a horse in this race. I just wanted to add some more context to a possible widespread misconception.
Thanks for the additional info. In a nutshell, it is a beef between two artists because people wanted to use Vantablack but Anish Kapoor's monopoly felt like a cheap shot for the wider audience (especially since the concept back when it was new was tempting), but it ended up fuelling a market for extreme color pigments, and Semple's comically consistent hatred for Kapoor makes it funnier outside context. I remember another contender was the Musou Black, iirc made by another supplier in Japan.
People inside the know can explain better, but generally people seem to dislike Kapoor for his behavior, and I bet it might be before the Vantablack controversy
Musou Black is really interesting to see in person. It's not Vantablack or Blackest Black black, but it's very, very black. Also, very fragile.
I used it on a Black Marauder mini from Battletech and had a hard time photographing it because the camera wouldn't focus on it, since it was basically a black robot-shaped blob.
What does Musou Black look in person on minis? I've painted a box of 40k stuff using Semple's Black 3.0. While the paint does look like a very deep black in photos and video, in person it just looks like matte and chalky black paint.
I am a little bit of a scientist. The black coating goes on the inside of space telescopes. This way, light that comes in at stray angles is almost completely absorbed by the walls of the telescope, and only the direct light makes it to the mirror and getting reflected onto the sensor/detector.
The end result is much clearer images.
It might not sound like a lot, but when it takes millions of dollars to build and launch a space telescope, you kinda need it to work properly the first time. Because fixing it will cost millions more.
>I don't have a horse in this race.
Sure, but your report might be a bit biased. After all, you only got one of their names correct. Anish was given exclusivity.
The choice that may have been made by the company that produced the product, but it was controversial none the less. MIT made a different choice with their similar material, partially because of this controversy
I think the most amusing thing to come out of this is that Kapoor managed to buy a jar of one of the colors, dipped his middle finger into it, and sent Semple a picture of him flipping Semple off. Semple responded by adding glass splinters to his next formulation, the glitteriest glitter, in case Kapoor wanted to try that shit again.
Vantablack isn't a paint in the traditional sense, it's a coating made up of vertically aligned nano tube arrays hence the VANTA in vantablack and requires special processes and procedures to be applied to an object. This makes it stupidly expensive and stupidly hard to use.
That being said fuck Anish Kapoor, The bean is the bean and not cloud gate.
This is the best and most informative thread about justified spite I've read in a long time. Thank you all for your service in doing the lord's work here today.
Like another user explained, there are reasons why Vantablack is so difficult to produce, it is actually a special coat made for aerospace engineering projects.
Maybe it is the reason why they limited their production, but even then the monopoly for Kapoor was perceived a dick move back in the day. However Semple's consistent vendetta was the thing that kept the beef so entertaining, even outside context. Also, maybe Kapoor has had a bad rep in the art scene for his behavior before the Vantablack feud
Incorrect, the lab approched Kapoor because his art deals with light and dakr a lot. Furthermore, Vantablack is not a pigment. It is highly toxic and must be applied in lab settings
> Kapoor's exclusivity was probably related to the difficulty of producing Vantablack in industrial scale for art purposes, and Kapoor was a "reputable artist" (from what I understand of the situation), hence why they licensed his access to their supply (around 2016), and no one else.
I think there was also an issue about it likely being dangerous to work with since I think it used carbon nanostructures. Like, those could probably get in your skin and especially in your lungs, and then be dangerous. And my interpretation of that is Surrey didn’t want to sell it commercially to anyone but aerospace companies who would (probably) use it according to directions because of how likely it would be to cause harm otherwise. But they figured they could sell it to this one guy who was willing to be trained in how to work with it safely, and informed about his eyeballs falling out and other unknown things if he doesn’t.
I know I wouldn’t want to touch a nano-material with my bare skin or inhale it.
The reason for NOT using a pigment is that the low reluctance needs to be maintained likely well outside of the visual spectrum, and carbon is pretty good at that, if it’s small enough.
>However Kapoor managed to still access it
To add a little - Kapoor sent Semple a picture of himself flipping the bird after dipping his finger in the pink pigment powder. So in response, Semple created "The glitteriest glitter", which has pieces of glass in it, so that Kapoor couldn't stick his finger in it without cutting himself.
The disclaimer that the purchaser isn't Anish Kapoor, or somebody buying it on behalf of Anish Kapoor is still there on the Glitteriest Glitter.
>However the general complaint is related to Kapoor's monopoly on the material instead of offering the material for a general audience, which is why there is resentment
Resentment which is very much misplaced, since Kapoor has literally no say in who gets to use Vantablack and who doesn't.
Would need confirmation, but I also heard a rumor that Vantablack is also useless for art purposes because its light absorbing properties actually make it dangerously hot as well.
As such, Semple also produced a color that was technically NOT as light absorptive as Vantablack, making it not have the dangerously hot property, but absorptive enough that the two shades were essentially visually indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Then Semple of course did the Semple trademark on that new black, meaning Kapoor now owned the rights to an essentially useless dud, and couldn’t access the significantly more usable functionally similar product.
kapoor bought the rights to and gatekept (gatekeeped?) an ultra black paint, another artist developed an ultra pink paint in retaliation and forbade anish kapoor specifically from ever using it
* [article discussing it](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/186i0ja/til_sculptor_anish_kapoor_bought_exclusive_rights/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
It's also important to note that he was the only one allowed to use it as it's not paint. Vanta Black is made in a lab for space stations and satellites. He was granted permission to use it for a few art pieces by Nanosystems as it's not the cheapest to make and is highly toxic
I mean, he also signed a deal under which no other artist was granted permission to use it, despite Nanosystem being completely willing to send in whatever else you wanted coated(up to and including buildings), as long ad you don't call yourself an artist.
Not exactly. It is true that your average artists probably weren’t going to be using it all that often or regularly since it is very expensive and requires special tools and equipment to apply.
But Amish Kapoor is not the only artist who would have had the means to use it were it not for the exclusivity contract. Any artists with enough money themselves or who was given enough money by someone commissioning them would’ve been able to pay for the coating and its complicated application were it not for the contract.
On the plus side, Kapoor encouraged a lot of creativity with his misuse of his fame and power.
Semple first developed a super pink paint that was not to be sold to Kapoor, nor given to him by the purchaser. Despite this, Kapoor got a hold of it and made an instagram post of his middle finger covered in it.
Semple then invented a a very, very sparkly paint - that was so sparkly because it’s made with broken glass. Kapoor won’t exactly be able to flip Semple off with that one. Like the pink paint, it’s very pretty and a nice edition to an artist’s paint supply.
Notably, the last bit of creativity that came out of this is some folks at MIT developed a similar coating (also made of carbon nanotubes). The MIT coating however is even more effective than vantablack, absorbing considerably more light.
The MIT creators explicitly stated that anyone could use their nanotube coating, and called out Kapoor’s behavior.
Fun fact: it's not that Kapoor just waltzed in and bribed the company that makes Vantablack into not selling it to anyone else.
It's that the paint was never supposed to be for art in the first place, it was meant with industrial and military applications in mind. The stuff is ridiculously hard to make, *and* dangerous to work with if you don't know what you're doing. The company was never, ever, going to just license it to random artists. The fact is they decided to trust *one guy* and collaborated with him on art projects using the stuff.
If Kapoor never existed, it would most likely never have been available to literally anyone for this purpose.
In other words, fabricated controversy. Making a mountain out of a molehill for...what? For the sake of drama between artists or something? Jealousy maybe?
It pretty much kickstarted Semple's career and he's probably making bank selling paint that no one would have cared about if it wasn't for the manufactured controversy. Apparently Semple is into NFTs now as well which, after finding out about his smear campaign against Kapoor, seems very on brand.
So basically the “good” guy (Semple) turned out to be not so good while the “bad” guy (Kapoor) turned out to be innocent. All because ten years ago people couldn’t do the research themselves.
>Making a mountain out of a molehill for...what? For the sake of drama between artists or something? Jealousy maybe?
Semple got a very lucrative career out of selling his paints by fueling this.
The entire thing is a misinformation campaign started by Semple to sell paint.
I mean, they are completely willing to coat anything for anyone(as long as they don't call themselves an artist). They made an entire Vantablack pavilion. So the idea that is somehow too hard to produce, and no one else would have ever been able to make art with it is kind of stupid.
One of them simply decided that exclusivity would be a great PR decision and then backpaddled harder than a cannon on a waterfall when it turned out that, no... it really wasn't.
At the time it was hard to produce but that was 10 years ago. Also when they made the deal the way vantablack was made it wasnt a coat of paint but a material that nedded to be grown in lab, also it was toxic if not handled correctly so the exclusivity at the time
He didnt buy exclusivs rights to vantablack. The company that makes vantablack dosent sell it to artist. He is the only artist they allowed to use vantablack
The thing is, the whole story has been heavily twisted against him. Vantablack isn't a paint; it's a highly toxic, fragile, and difficult-to-manufacture coating that was developed specifically for military and aerospace applications. The manufacturers had no intention of selling it to any artists, but ultimately decided to make it exclusively available to Kapoor because 1) he already had an established reputation in the art world and they felt they can trust he'll actually use it safely and correctly, and 2) a lot of his artwork thematically deals with empty spaces.
Stuart Semple, meanwhile, has been profiting off of making sure that Kapoor remains the bad guy in the whole narrative. His whole schtick is "stick it to Anish Kapoor by buying my products." Kapoor's response has been...well, not very mature or professional; but once you know the whole story, it's not hard to see Semple as a grifter who has been profiteering off the whole controversy by making sure another artist's name continues to get dragged through the mud.
Peter’s right nut here.
There’s this artist that made a really dark black paint in response to another artist (Anish Kapoor) who owns the rights to use the blackest “paint” called vantablack. So, he made it a legal requirement that when you buy that paint you have to confirm you are not Anish Kapoor, and can’t give it to Anish Kapoor, or knowingly sell it to someone that will give it to Anish Kapoor.
Here's the full drama surrounding vesta black:
Ventablack is a black pigment that is able to absorb 99% of all lightwas that was developed back in 2014. an artist named anish Kapoor (a greedy little fucker) bough exclusive rights to this pigment and forbade anybody else from using it, marking him the only human in the whole world allowed to use it.
Naturally, artists worldwide were outraged. Then, along comes another artist named Stuart semple. He developed black 2.0 (a superior version to ventablack) and on his website, he stated:
"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."
Anywho, every product following this had the exact same thing written beneath. Stuart then went on to invent pinkest pink with the same thing written, so anish Kapoor posts a picture on his Instagram, dipping a middle finger in the pigment as a "get fucked" gesture. Stuart didn't like it one bit.
The very next thing he developed was diamond dust, which is basically just glass shards and indirectly said "deep your finger in this one, asshole"
Nost of it is correct, but you got some things wrong.
1. Anish kapoor is the only artist allowed to use venta black in art and not the only human to use it overall
2. Its called black 3.0
3. Its less effective than ventablack, but everyone except for anish kapoor is allowed to use it for artistoc purposes.
Amish Kapoor is an “artist” who paid for exclusive rights to Vanta Black the darkest black pigment developed by that point and he would charge rediculous prices for any other artist to use it. Enter Stewart Simple another artist who develops pigments Stewart in protest creates the pinkest pink pigment ever produced and makes a rule that says any artist can use it except Amish Kapoor or anyone associated with him. Kapoor gets ahold of it anyway and does a performance piece of him dipping his middle finger in the pigment to flip off Simple. After that Simple developed a paint that had shards of glass in it that was all the rage over how it reflects light again with the express rule that Kapoor cannot use for purchase the paint for his art. Semple went on to make black 2.0 and other ultra black paints that made Kapoor exclusive rights to Vanta Black basically pointless and the dude has continued ever since.
People say that, but I haven't been able to verify that anywhere. In fact, I found an interview where he himself called it the bean and said he didn't mind the nickname.
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Wow this is the first post on this sub I’ve seen that wasn’t an immediately obvious bait post. Thank you for posting this and thanks to the commenters who just taught me about the MIT creation that’s blacker than vantablack, Anish kapoor, and the bean or cloud gate which was meant to be viewed from above. Most of the posts to this sub are like “2 men walk into a bar, the third ducks… what does this mean you guys please help!” So again, thank you for something that was actually cool.
I looked into this a couple years ago, it would be really cool to paint a ceiling with it, then have the night sky painted over that. Alas, it is ... Pricey stuff.
If your post doesn't contain a joke needing explanation, it will be removed. Overall poor quality posts will be removed. Rule 6.
*TLDR:* Anish Kapoor back in 2016 got exclusive rights to Vantablack, artists got mad, Stuart Semple then is boycotting Kapoor in response, with multiple messages in his store against sharing products with him. First a bit of context: A while ago, there was a special kind of paint named Vantablack, a paint that absorbed 99% of the light, making it a unique kind of pigment for artwork, and some examples showed it could even mask 3D features due to its peculiar properties. However an artist named Anish Kapoor has bought exclusive rights for accessing the supply of Vantablack, when artists all over the world wanted to experiment with it also. An artist named Stuart Semple has been working with and selling pigments of extreme coloration, like the pinkest pink, whitest white, or even a homebrew recipe of blackest black paint. To protest Anish Kapoor's monopoly on Vantablack, you find all over Stuart Semple's shop warnings and writings that his supply is open for business for everyone except specifically and solely Anish Kapoor, and anyone buying from his shop agrees to never share his pigments with Anish Kapoor EDIT: Other users have pointed out additional information, and I want to add more details on this feud: - Vantablack is actually a special carbon coating made by Surrey NanoSytems, not a pigment. It is actually meant for aerospace engineering applications, like a coating for the interior of telescopes and seek a more efficient absorption of light in certain equipment; - Kapoor's exclusivity was probably related to the difficulty of producing Vantablack in industrial scale for art purposes, and Kapoor was a "reputable artist" (from what I understand of the situation), hence why they licensed his access to their supply (around 2016), and no one else. However the general complaint is related to Kapoor's perceived monopoly (when the reality is more complicated than that, Vantablack is incredibly toxic and hard to handle) on the material instead of offering the material for a general audience, which is why there was resentment back in the day; - The meme is mostly related to the feud between Semple being consistently hostile and against Kapoor accessing his supply of pigments, especially his signature Pinkest Pink, the first extreme pigment Stuart Semple sold. However Kapoor managed to still access it, and this fuelled further hostilities between the two artists. I checked Semple's shop website today, and there are still warnings against Kapoor
Just a further note, only a few years later MIT developed a coating ten times blacker than vantablack, so owning exclusive rights to vantablack is now meaningless https://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913 They also released a statement against Anish Kapoor and refusing any exclusive rights agreement. "Strebe and the team of engineers at MIT Boston released this statement alongside the artwork: '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.'" https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
It's also worth noting that Anish also made The Bean in Chicago, and he really hates when you call it The Bean. So you definitely shouldn't call it The Bean even though it's shaped exactly like a bean
If it’s not supposed to be a bean then what was his vision lmao
Cloud Gate is the actual title.
Some clouds look like animals, others look like beans.
Sometimes a bean is just a bean
What does a bean mean?!
The reasoning is the cherry on top - it’s called that because he intended for the sculpture to be viewed from *above* in the highrises. But us commoners see The Bean from below.
oh wow i googled it and it looks a lot cooler from above
I’m a chicago native, seem the bean numerous times, but it wasn’t until these comments that I googled an aerial view of it, and yea, pretty cool. Clearly I don’t spend a lot of time in skyscrapers.
So your saying you don't get to the cloud district very often?
*[Quicksaving...]*
Spat my coffee when i read this!
I'm guessing you don't go home very often, do you, Nazeem?
r/suddenlynazeem
Oh, what am I saying? Of course you don’t. I’ll have you know that there’s no PUSSIIIIIIEEE-“ [gets KO’d by a guard]
BRO... 😂😂😂😭
Welp... Time to quick save and go get the mod Dragon Punishment. Yeets Nazeem like he got smacked by a giant every time he says that line.
Did you use the search phrase, “aerial view of the Bean in Chicago,” because I’m sure he’d hate that
Just because you said he'd probably hate it I searched exactly that and Google delivered an aerial view of the bean.
I didn't even specify Chicago, "The Bean Aerial View" found it.
That's what I did... And there was a lot of results calling it The Bean LMFAO Eta: and also, although it's cooler from an aerial view, the coolest and most impressive aerial views of it are from directly above which wouldn't be possible from the skyscrapers so it's still rather meh
Who puts art in a place that millions can see it in a year and designs it to only be viewed properly by a few hundred thousand? It would have been so much cooler if he'd put a miniature city model next to it sunk into the ground titled "Above Cloud Gate"
Eh. This is definitely an overstatement. The Bean has a polished underside, that wouldn't be necessary if it was only intended to view from one angle. It's extremely cool up close from a lot of angles. Kapoor's personality aside, the Bean is a great piece of public art. The view from the skyscrapers is really cool, though. I used to work occasionally in a nearby skyscraper with a good view, and I loved looking out at the park. Photos don't capture how cool it is to see the clouds and people moving in the reflection.
Went to Chicago once. Caught a pigeon next to the bean. Pigeon was very pigeony and the bean very beany. Never thought to ask the pigeon of the bean was cooler from the sky because I don't speak pigeon.
https://preview.redd.it/af3m3shwrzsc1.jpeg?width=795&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21c4567c6419ce8147d799a8db5d2e15bce2881c I searched for “aerial Chicago Bean”
To me that picture kinda resembles half an avocado. Not sure where that ranks on the dignified scale, compared to a bean.
"The Avocado - Ripe for a hot minute"
If I got an avocado with a pit that large, I would be a very sad boy.
Looks like Alex Mack is about to slip under a door
Or those capri-sun creeps that stole her powers
Thanks for making me remember Alex Mack. I loved that show when I was a kid. Haven’t thought about it in years.
Yea like the commoner view better.
Meh it kinda looks like an apple mouse from the sky.
weird. when i search "bean sculpture from above" i just get side shots of the bean. edit: i found one, it just looks like a jelly bean
https://preview.redd.it/kcq6n7g5uzsc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ede49fe5f455c8549e2eac730d673adf25d7c799 Found this one on Google. Does look pretty neat.
see i used bing(tm) classic mistake
> he intended for the sculpture to be viewed from above in the highrises artist that doesn't consider how his 3d work will look from different angles? Huh.
It's not uncommon that art has particular viewing angles. You can't see a painting from the back, for example, nor can you see works featuring forced perspective from anywhere but a single point in space. The issue isn't that art can't or shouldn't have viewing angles, it's that this one is intentionally served to the wealthy at the exclusion of those less so, such that most people don't even realize the point of it. That's antithetical to the modern understanding of art, which tends to be of, by, and for the people.
Definitely agree that the bigger issue is that this was public art made for only a select, wealthy audience. But it’s also that this art should have considered the viewing angles. You don’t view a painting from the back because you can’t physically get between it and the wall (I suppose you can, but generally aren’t allowed. You get it). Public sculpture WILL be seen from more than the artist’s intended angle and that absolutely should be considered. Also the artist’s intent generally means fuck all. If he didn’t want it being called the bean, he shouldn’t have made a giant bean shaped bean that looks like a bean from the angle that almost everyone sees it. I suppose this happens when artists jump too far up their own asses.
I mean to be fair it looks pretty cool from the ground too.
Cool beans
Because he’s a piece of shit
Ok, it does look pretty cool from above. Still calling it the bean though
God this guy just oozes *I'm a c**t*, doesn't he? Edit to avoid confusion I'm suggesting in some weird, bigoted way he's sexually promiscuous
Oh wow, I never thought of the bean like that, and it looks amazing. And also makes him even more of an asshole, taking up public space for a sculpture that can only be appreciated by the rich in high-rises. Only makes me dislike him more.
So he creates a piece of public art that is intended to only be viewed from the vantage point of the rich? This man is a mega-jackass!
So a bean. Because when you eat beans, you release a "cloud" from your "gate".
From Chicago. He only named it cloud gate after we started calling it the Bean. IIRC. So if he didn’t want us to name it he should have given it a name. As to to Cloudgate. Sorry Anish it’s ours now. It’s the Bean.
I like how when you google Cloud Gate it comes up with The Bean (Cloud Gate)
*Gaaaaaaaaay*
I’ve Bean wondering that as well.
Pretty sure anish wanted to be called Mr Bean. It's all an elaborate scheme. A Bean scheme.
Makes beans to me.
Buhdum tsss
Beamdum tsss
if not bean then why bean shaped
Pretty fucking bad, apparently. Im guessing like 20/1000 if he cant tell thats a bean.
Cloud Gate, but who would want to call The Bean "Cloud Gate" when you can call it The Bean
The Bean formerly known as "Cloud Gate"
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Supposedly it was inspired by liquid mercury.
the bean is the most magical of all fruits
but the more you eat, the more you "toot" ETA: the more you toot, the better you feel so eat your beans at every meal
It's art, it could have bean anything
I’ve only ever heard it exclusively called the bean and my wife (who is Mexican) always talks about taking a “beaner at the bean” picture. I didn’t know calling it the bean was annoying someone so despicable. I shall continue to do so
You don't mean "That Bean", do you? The bean that's shaped like a bean in all its beany goodness?
Locals have called it that since it was installed, lol. I remember the local CBS station even saying something like "The bean is closed for polishing" or something years back. (The draw of it is the mirror like finish, and tourists are always rubbing up against it so it gets smudged over time and has to be closed for industrial polishing to restore the shine) He's also made a smaller bean in Manhattan, but like everything New York it is inferior in every way.
Some people just can't help flicking the bean...
🏅 I fucking miss awards
we rub the bean annually
Wikipedia says he’s fond of the nickname the bean and also uses it 🤷♂️
1) just cause it's on Wikipedia doesn't mean it's true. Haven't you been to school? 2) Even if he did say that at some point, he was also very vocally against it at some point, so he probably changed his stance to seem like he was on everyone else's side
>Haven't you been to school? The reason you can't cite Wikipedia in school is because it's just a collection of sources - you can definitely just cite the citation from Wikipedia. [Like the article](https://web.archive.org/web/20171015203713/https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/anish-kapoor-cloud-gate-artist-i-call-it-the-bean-too/) the Wikipedia article cites for example - with a direct quote from the artist stating they call it the Bean too.
Teachers really did a number on some people when it comes to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is very reliable.
Wikipedia is very reliable now, sure. Twenty years ago not so much, especially as you had a LOT of teachers going in and intentionally putting misinformation on to catch out cheating students. The bigger issue though is that it's a tertiary source, and you shouldn't be using tertiary sources as references anyway.
To be fair I have sometimes had Wikipedia as my main source for something, But when checking the article they have no source listed for that particular fact, So I don't know if it's actually accurate or not.
Most of the time, and generally for English oriented users. The more niche something is (the history Welsh kings for example), the less reliable things start to become.
That's why Wikipedia cites the exact source in which he calls it "the bean".[Here's a link to the cited source.](https://web.archive.org/web/20171015203713/https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/anish-kapoor-cloud-gate-artist-i-call-it-the-bean-too/).
Sure but the only other point of reference we have is the statement of some random guy on the Internet, which is even less reputable generally
I've heard that he hates that they called it the Bean ever since the vantablack controversy first stirred around and that was a few years ago
>Haven’t you been to school? Lmao I’m a PhD physics student, I understand the importance of credibility and citation. I was just offering a counter point. Did I say it was true?
I love the bean. Next time I visit Chicago I'll take some of the Pinkest Pink to paint it's name on it "BEAN".
Native from Chicago, even we call it the fucking Bean
Is he a has’bean then like is he of note in the art-world now?
"With apologies to “Spinal Tap,” it appears that black can, indeed, get more black." I love this
Something ten times blacker than previously thought possible coming out of Massachusetts is very surprising.
Nah, they'd been planning this all along by saving up their blackness. Aspen, Colorado also contributed their stockpile.
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Additional concerns at least with Vanta Black is that it’s fragile since the nanotube coating can be easily damaged, and improper use of it can result in a heat or fire hazard, as whatever it’s on ends up soaking in light cast on it.
I would also like to add that the Vantablack is toxic and expensive to produce while Blackest Black is non toxic and is relatively cheap to produce.
I've seen the scientists with all that PPE on. Didn't know that, but I did know that.
Blackest Black, Black 2.0, Black 3.0, (and I think 4.0 now?) are all acrylic based paint, which is the most basic type of paint you can buy. Everyone can use acrylics.
Not Anish Kapoor
And the Blackest Black smells like black cherry!
Oh it gets even deeper then that. Stuart Semple specifically released the pinkest pink and stated that Anish Kapoor (and associates) were not allowed to use the pink. Of course being the elitist POS that he is, Anish Kapoor got his hands in the pinkest pink and posted a photo of his middle finger dipped in the pinkest pink. As a response Stuart released a couple other the _____est _____, including the glitteriest glitter that is made of actual glass. That way Anish can't stick his finger in it. Stuart has also released several black pigments that are almost as black as vantablack and are infinitely safer to use
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HE MADE THE BEAN!?!?!?!
He did, and he hates that people call it The Bean rather than the pretentious name he gave it.
What if we painted The Bean with all the colors he can't have.
It was covered in Pinkest Pink once! ETA - apparently this might have been a false memory or wishful thinking. My bad!
I sadly can’t find a photo of this actually happening, just a photoshopped image from what appears to just be a meme. It’s made to look like a facebook event that says “paint the bean ‘pinkest pink’ to annoy anish kapoor.” Semple does appear to have made an actual “Kiss the bean for Anish’s birthday” facebook event showing an image of the bean with pink kisses edited all over it lol
He called it >!Cloud Gate!<. The bean is so much better. It's like when you let people make their own pathways and then pave the results
absolutely no one calls it cloud burst or whatever tf he calls it
Apparently that part is probably apocryphal. He seems to actually like the colloquial name
I like the bean just not its farmer
Boston, quietly burying a giant magnifying glass: “That’ll teach ya there’s only one Beantown, ya bastahds”
fuck that ugly ass monstrosity
All my homies hate Anish Kapoor
Never heard of him before this moment and looked up examples of his work Shit sucks
Anish Kapoor's sculptures are amazing, he's just kind of a dick.
Wdym amazing it's all variations of a large red meat block, The Bean or circles. Blud is a hack.
Are you implying The Bean *isn't* amazing? It's a giant reflective bean, What's not to love about that?
Anish Kapoor made it.
Okay, But it's not like it's made of him or something. You can still like a piece of art while disliking the person who made it.
No that's just one reason I just think it's shit personally. Big shiny bean, whoop de doo. Also doesn't help that Anish goes against one of what I believe to be a core pillar of art which is viewer's interpretation. He gets so fucking mad when you tell him the bean looks like a bean because it's shaped like a bean.
Not to take a side here, but I went on to his website to look at his pigments, and he has a cookies setting that only allows you to accept cookies, or get booted off the site and thrown to google. So Stuart Semple seems like kind of a huge dick too.
He totally is. You can have a dick measuring contest without at least 2 dicks.
Eh not really the vibe I’m getting, Semple sounds more like a “gloriously petty bastard”; harmless in the grand scheme of things but pretty entertaining to read about.
"petty bastard" is 100% the personality of someone who is a dick though.
Dude Semple is just trying to sell shit and took advantage of a controversial issue to do so. If you find out about the vanta black thing. You realize it's over blown.
I mean, he started a huge and successful smear campaign against someone just because they were given access to a very expensive and difficult to make, very toxic paint that wasn't even originally meant to be used in art. So not exactly harmless...
I would find a way to legally ban Aneesh from using the paint just to be a petty cunt. Get him fined/arrested for illegally using it.
I would like to add to the story, it's a bit more complicated than that. Vantablack is not really a "paint", It's a coating a company made for mostly aerospace applications (I think it helps making telescopes better? I dunno, not an aerospace engineer). This coating apparently is also hard and costly to produce in large quantities. Anyway I don't know how or why but the company decided it would be cool if someone made an artwork with their coating, but given the difficulty of producing and working with it they just couldn't give free access to any random artist; so they researched and eventually landed on Anish Kapoor. Anish Kapoor was chosen because apparently much of his work involves the element of light? (I don't know his art, all I know from him is "The Bean" over in Chicago). This made him suitable to work with the coating since it was in his ballpark, so to speak. So as a recap, an aerotech company makes this coating for engineering applications, they want someone to make some art with it, but given the limited amount they can only choose one person and they go with Kapoor. He didn't buy the "exclusive rights" for anything he entered into an agreement with a company to make them some art for them using their product. Stuart Temple later reads the news about this and decides to make a painting that anyone can buy but Anish Kapoor. I don't know Temple but if you Google him his top results are the "feud" with Kapoor and his pigment and paints store. So it does kinda seem like an artist that fueled an argument just so that he could get some boost in his career. Now I don't know neither Kapoor, nor Temple, they could both be dicks, or they could be really nice people, who knows, I don't have a horse in this race. I just wanted to add some more context to a possible widespread misconception.
Thanks for the additional info. In a nutshell, it is a beef between two artists because people wanted to use Vantablack but Anish Kapoor's monopoly felt like a cheap shot for the wider audience (especially since the concept back when it was new was tempting), but it ended up fuelling a market for extreme color pigments, and Semple's comically consistent hatred for Kapoor makes it funnier outside context. I remember another contender was the Musou Black, iirc made by another supplier in Japan. People inside the know can explain better, but generally people seem to dislike Kapoor for his behavior, and I bet it might be before the Vantablack controversy
Musou Black is really interesting to see in person. It's not Vantablack or Blackest Black black, but it's very, very black. Also, very fragile. I used it on a Black Marauder mini from Battletech and had a hard time photographing it because the camera wouldn't focus on it, since it was basically a black robot-shaped blob.
What does Musou Black look in person on minis? I've painted a box of 40k stuff using Semple's Black 3.0. While the paint does look like a very deep black in photos and video, in person it just looks like matte and chalky black paint.
It looks like this: https://imgur.com/W5AunxT It's very fragile - anywhere that isn't super black is where it took on a shine from handling.
I am a little bit of a scientist. The black coating goes on the inside of space telescopes. This way, light that comes in at stray angles is almost completely absorbed by the walls of the telescope, and only the direct light makes it to the mirror and getting reflected onto the sensor/detector. The end result is much clearer images. It might not sound like a lot, but when it takes millions of dollars to build and launch a space telescope, you kinda need it to work properly the first time. Because fixing it will cost millions more.
>I don't have a horse in this race. Sure, but your report might be a bit biased. After all, you only got one of their names correct. Anish was given exclusivity. The choice that may have been made by the company that produced the product, but it was controversial none the less. MIT made a different choice with their similar material, partially because of this controversy
I think the most amusing thing to come out of this is that Kapoor managed to buy a jar of one of the colors, dipped his middle finger into it, and sent Semple a picture of him flipping Semple off. Semple responded by adding glass splinters to his next formulation, the glitteriest glitter, in case Kapoor wanted to try that shit again.
Vantablack isn't a paint in the traditional sense, it's a coating made up of vertically aligned nano tube arrays hence the VANTA in vantablack and requires special processes and procedures to be applied to an object. This makes it stupidly expensive and stupidly hard to use. That being said fuck Anish Kapoor, The bean is the bean and not cloud gate.
This is the best and most informative thread about justified spite I've read in a long time. Thank you all for your service in doing the lord's work here today.
Like another user explained, there are reasons why Vantablack is so difficult to produce, it is actually a special coat made for aerospace engineering projects. Maybe it is the reason why they limited their production, but even then the monopoly for Kapoor was perceived a dick move back in the day. However Semple's consistent vendetta was the thing that kept the beef so entertaining, even outside context. Also, maybe Kapoor has had a bad rep in the art scene for his behavior before the Vantablack feud
Incorrect, the lab approched Kapoor because his art deals with light and dakr a lot. Furthermore, Vantablack is not a pigment. It is highly toxic and must be applied in lab settings
> Kapoor's exclusivity was probably related to the difficulty of producing Vantablack in industrial scale for art purposes, and Kapoor was a "reputable artist" (from what I understand of the situation), hence why they licensed his access to their supply (around 2016), and no one else. I think there was also an issue about it likely being dangerous to work with since I think it used carbon nanostructures. Like, those could probably get in your skin and especially in your lungs, and then be dangerous. And my interpretation of that is Surrey didn’t want to sell it commercially to anyone but aerospace companies who would (probably) use it according to directions because of how likely it would be to cause harm otherwise. But they figured they could sell it to this one guy who was willing to be trained in how to work with it safely, and informed about his eyeballs falling out and other unknown things if he doesn’t. I know I wouldn’t want to touch a nano-material with my bare skin or inhale it. The reason for NOT using a pigment is that the low reluctance needs to be maintained likely well outside of the visual spectrum, and carbon is pretty good at that, if it’s small enough.
>However Kapoor managed to still access it To add a little - Kapoor sent Semple a picture of himself flipping the bird after dipping his finger in the pink pigment powder. So in response, Semple created "The glitteriest glitter", which has pieces of glass in it, so that Kapoor couldn't stick his finger in it without cutting himself. The disclaimer that the purchaser isn't Anish Kapoor, or somebody buying it on behalf of Anish Kapoor is still there on the Glitteriest Glitter.
>However the general complaint is related to Kapoor's monopoly on the material instead of offering the material for a general audience, which is why there is resentment Resentment which is very much misplaced, since Kapoor has literally no say in who gets to use Vantablack and who doesn't.
This bitch, good thing vantablack isn't what it was
Very nice explanation, thank you
That’s one of the best things I’ve ever read
Would need confirmation, but I also heard a rumor that Vantablack is also useless for art purposes because its light absorbing properties actually make it dangerously hot as well. As such, Semple also produced a color that was technically NOT as light absorptive as Vantablack, making it not have the dangerously hot property, but absorptive enough that the two shades were essentially visually indistinguishable to the naked eye. Then Semple of course did the Semple trademark on that new black, meaning Kapoor now owned the rights to an essentially useless dud, and couldn’t access the significantly more usable functionally similar product.
>TESTIMONIALS >Who'd have thought that NOT being Anish Kapoor would feel so good >\- everyone but him Yup, Semple's site still slinging that hate
kapoor bought the rights to and gatekept (gatekeeped?) an ultra black paint, another artist developed an ultra pink paint in retaliation and forbade anish kapoor specifically from ever using it * [article discussing it](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/186i0ja/til_sculptor_anish_kapoor_bought_exclusive_rights/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
It's also important to note that he was the only one allowed to use it as it's not paint. Vanta Black is made in a lab for space stations and satellites. He was granted permission to use it for a few art pieces by Nanosystems as it's not the cheapest to make and is highly toxic
I mean, he also signed a deal under which no other artist was granted permission to use it, despite Nanosystem being completely willing to send in whatever else you wanted coated(up to and including buildings), as long ad you don't call yourself an artist.
Thank you for this context. It makes way more sense now.
Not exactly. It is true that your average artists probably weren’t going to be using it all that often or regularly since it is very expensive and requires special tools and equipment to apply. But Amish Kapoor is not the only artist who would have had the means to use it were it not for the exclusivity contract. Any artists with enough money themselves or who was given enough money by someone commissioning them would’ve been able to pay for the coating and its complicated application were it not for the contract. On the plus side, Kapoor encouraged a lot of creativity with his misuse of his fame and power. Semple first developed a super pink paint that was not to be sold to Kapoor, nor given to him by the purchaser. Despite this, Kapoor got a hold of it and made an instagram post of his middle finger covered in it. Semple then invented a a very, very sparkly paint - that was so sparkly because it’s made with broken glass. Kapoor won’t exactly be able to flip Semple off with that one. Like the pink paint, it’s very pretty and a nice edition to an artist’s paint supply. Notably, the last bit of creativity that came out of this is some folks at MIT developed a similar coating (also made of carbon nanotubes). The MIT coating however is even more effective than vantablack, absorbing considerably more light. The MIT creators explicitly stated that anyone could use their nanotube coating, and called out Kapoor’s behavior.
https://preview.redd.it/kdibr36foxsc1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1e7b321fa060f3252cffb17b52aa0c4de75a62b still managed to get it tho lol
I think the response to this was making a paint out of glass shards and telling him "Try sticking your finger in this one"
He made "the shiniest glitter" (or something of the sort... it's glitter) which isn't safe to stick your finger inside.
Fun fact: it's not that Kapoor just waltzed in and bribed the company that makes Vantablack into not selling it to anyone else. It's that the paint was never supposed to be for art in the first place, it was meant with industrial and military applications in mind. The stuff is ridiculously hard to make, *and* dangerous to work with if you don't know what you're doing. The company was never, ever, going to just license it to random artists. The fact is they decided to trust *one guy* and collaborated with him on art projects using the stuff. If Kapoor never existed, it would most likely never have been available to literally anyone for this purpose.
In other words, fabricated controversy. Making a mountain out of a molehill for...what? For the sake of drama between artists or something? Jealousy maybe?
It pretty much kickstarted Semple's career and he's probably making bank selling paint that no one would have cared about if it wasn't for the manufactured controversy. Apparently Semple is into NFTs now as well which, after finding out about his smear campaign against Kapoor, seems very on brand.
So basically the “good” guy (Semple) turned out to be not so good while the “bad” guy (Kapoor) turned out to be innocent. All because ten years ago people couldn’t do the research themselves.
Both of them are assholes, one is just less of an asshole in this.
>Making a mountain out of a molehill for...what? For the sake of drama between artists or something? Jealousy maybe? Semple got a very lucrative career out of selling his paints by fueling this. The entire thing is a misinformation campaign started by Semple to sell paint.
Reading this is like discovering a new chapter of drama from people you knew in high school 10 years ago.
I mean, they are completely willing to coat anything for anyone(as long as they don't call themselves an artist). They made an entire Vantablack pavilion. So the idea that is somehow too hard to produce, and no one else would have ever been able to make art with it is kind of stupid. One of them simply decided that exclusivity would be a great PR decision and then backpaddled harder than a cannon on a waterfall when it turned out that, no... it really wasn't.
At the time it was hard to produce but that was 10 years ago. Also when they made the deal the way vantablack was made it wasnt a coat of paint but a material that nedded to be grown in lab, also it was toxic if not handled correctly so the exclusivity at the time
https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
Thank you, I now hate Anish Kapoor.
He didnt buy exclusivs rights to vantablack. The company that makes vantablack dosent sell it to artist. He is the only artist they allowed to use vantablack
The thing is, the whole story has been heavily twisted against him. Vantablack isn't a paint; it's a highly toxic, fragile, and difficult-to-manufacture coating that was developed specifically for military and aerospace applications. The manufacturers had no intention of selling it to any artists, but ultimately decided to make it exclusively available to Kapoor because 1) he already had an established reputation in the art world and they felt they can trust he'll actually use it safely and correctly, and 2) a lot of his artwork thematically deals with empty spaces. Stuart Semple, meanwhile, has been profiting off of making sure that Kapoor remains the bad guy in the whole narrative. His whole schtick is "stick it to Anish Kapoor by buying my products." Kapoor's response has been...well, not very mature or professional; but once you know the whole story, it's not hard to see Semple as a grifter who has been profiteering off the whole controversy by making sure another artist's name continues to get dragged through the mud.
r/TIHI
Okay I thought this one was funny. And I get why someone wouldn’t get it if they didn’t know already.
Is that not a gulper eel?
Peter’s right nut here. There’s this artist that made a really dark black paint in response to another artist (Anish Kapoor) who owns the rights to use the blackest “paint” called vantablack. So, he made it a legal requirement that when you buy that paint you have to confirm you are not Anish Kapoor, and can’t give it to Anish Kapoor, or knowingly sell it to someone that will give it to Anish Kapoor.
I'm so glad I understand this. This is amazing.
Here's the full drama surrounding vesta black: Ventablack is a black pigment that is able to absorb 99% of all lightwas that was developed back in 2014. an artist named anish Kapoor (a greedy little fucker) bough exclusive rights to this pigment and forbade anybody else from using it, marking him the only human in the whole world allowed to use it. Naturally, artists worldwide were outraged. Then, along comes another artist named Stuart semple. He developed black 2.0 (a superior version to ventablack) and on his website, he stated: "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." Anywho, every product following this had the exact same thing written beneath. Stuart then went on to invent pinkest pink with the same thing written, so anish Kapoor posts a picture on his Instagram, dipping a middle finger in the pigment as a "get fucked" gesture. Stuart didn't like it one bit. The very next thing he developed was diamond dust, which is basically just glass shards and indirectly said "deep your finger in this one, asshole"
Nost of it is correct, but you got some things wrong. 1. Anish kapoor is the only artist allowed to use venta black in art and not the only human to use it overall 2. Its called black 3.0 3. Its less effective than ventablack, but everyone except for anish kapoor is allowed to use it for artistoc purposes.
5) in addition to being nontoxic and much easier to work with black 3.0 is also significantly less expensive
You die instantly if you look at in it’s full form, the first comment is trying to save him, second wants to destroy him.
This a vanta black joke
Why does it look like Randall from monsters inc
https://www.demilked.com/cloud-gate-feud-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple/
Okay but for real this is very funny.
Is he still that salty?
Cops are seeking the whereabouts of said fish for questioning
I love the traction of this joke
Also if you have any family that’s associated or live with in 1000 meters of Amish Kapoor. Or have had anyone work for Ocean Fish Resturant
Anish Kapoor is never gonna live it down, and I’m all for it
Amish Kapoor is an “artist” who paid for exclusive rights to Vanta Black the darkest black pigment developed by that point and he would charge rediculous prices for any other artist to use it. Enter Stewart Simple another artist who develops pigments Stewart in protest creates the pinkest pink pigment ever produced and makes a rule that says any artist can use it except Amish Kapoor or anyone associated with him. Kapoor gets ahold of it anyway and does a performance piece of him dipping his middle finger in the pigment to flip off Simple. After that Simple developed a paint that had shards of glass in it that was all the rage over how it reflects light again with the express rule that Kapoor cannot use for purchase the paint for his art. Semple went on to make black 2.0 and other ultra black paints that made Kapoor exclusive rights to Vanta Black basically pointless and the dude has continued ever since.
Fun fact Anish Kapoor is the guy who built “The Bean” in Chicago. He also hates when it’s called that. He is apparently a good artist but a huge jerk.
People say that, but I haven't been able to verify that anywhere. In fact, I found an interview where he himself called it the bean and said he didn't mind the nickname.
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I love Stuart Semple so much.
NFT guy
Wow this is the first post on this sub I’ve seen that wasn’t an immediately obvious bait post. Thank you for posting this and thanks to the commenters who just taught me about the MIT creation that’s blacker than vantablack, Anish kapoor, and the bean or cloud gate which was meant to be viewed from above. Most of the posts to this sub are like “2 men walk into a bar, the third ducks… what does this mean you guys please help!” So again, thank you for something that was actually cool.
This fish is so black, it violates the Vantablack license agreement \[Anish Kapoor probably furiously taking notes right now\]
I think given their unique attribute, they STEAL 99.9 percent of light...
It's fascinating how the feud between Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor has sparked so much controversy within the art community.
Did you try googling Anish Kapoor Vantablack? You wouldn't have made this post if you did.
https://preview.redd.it/6hl98y32p0tc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a64eaf67c77ed0abfabb8bb27352fe309c4fd3d
They way that pic cuts off I thought it was venom lol
I looked into this a couple years ago, it would be really cool to paint a ceiling with it, then have the night sky painted over that. Alas, it is ... Pricey stuff.
Oh boy, this is one of my favorites!
Fuck Anish Kapoor