A pigment that "we think is the blackest material in the universe, after a black hole."

Writing about Anish Kapoor — in that post about "The Bean" and "The Clenched Fist of Truth" — got me to an article that reminded me that I need to write about the death of Stephen Hawking. I'm going to write about Hawking in the next post, but first I want to read this 2016 Guardian article "'You could disappear into it': Anish Kapoor on his exclusive rights to the 'blackest black'/Artist defends controversial deal with developers of Vantablack, the blackest material ‘after a black hole.'"

The pigment is comprised of microscopic stems of colour that are 300 times as tall as they are wide, so that about 99.6% of all light “just gets trapped in the network of standing segments”, he explains. “It’s literally as if you could disappear into it.” The pigment was being developed for scientific and military use due to its “masking ability”....

But when Kapoor won exclusive rights to the material in February, it came with backlash from the artistic community. “I’ve never heard of an artist monopolising a material,” the artist Christian Furr told the Daily Mail. “All the best artists have had a thing for pure black – Turner, Manet, Goya … This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it. It isn’t right that it belongs to one man.”

Kapoor defended his exclusive use of the material: “Why exclusive? Because it’s a collaboration, because I am wanting to push them to a certain use for it. I’ve collaborated with people who make things out of stainless steel for years and that’s exclusive.” He believes much of the debate comes down to emotion. “The problem is that colour is so emotive – especially black ... I don’t think the same response would occur if it was white.”

Kapoor, who has had two decades of psychotherapy, said it’s the “psycho side” of black that makes us want to possess it. “Perhaps the darkest black is the black we carry within ourselves,” he says. “It’s not the night where you switch the lights off – it’s the night where you close your eyes. There’s a psycho side to blackness that we don’t associate with other colours readily. I suspect red does the same. I’ve worked with red a great deal, for not dissimilar reasons.”

A psycho side to blackness.... That sounds wrong, but he's an artist; what does he have to do with politics? Read in that post about "The Bean" and "The Clenched Fist of Truth" and find out.

Can you own a color? You can have a color as a trademark (like UPS has brown), but obviously Kapoor can't own "the blackest black." But what he got was a particular substance, a pigment, that allows black to be seen in way that reflects no light at all. There's a distinction between pigment and color. Color is what is perceived in your brain when light enters your eye. Pigment is stuff that light can hit before bouncing into your eye.

ADDED: Also missed by me back in 2016, the maker of the "pinkest pink" retaliated against Kapoor for hogging the Vantablack:

To keep Kapoor away from PINK, buyers of the paint were asked to sign a legal declaration at checkout to ensure that the artist and his associates would not be able to buy it for him.

And here's Kapoor's response:

"Artist Anish Kapoor 'disgusted' that The Bean appears in NRA ad."

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Anish Kapoor — the Indian-born, British sculptor responsible for the work colloquially known as The Bean — said the 2017 ad titled “The Clenched Fist of Truth” and starring NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch used footage of the sculpture without his consent “by the NRA to promote their vile message.”

The sculpture was used as a stand-in for former President Barack Obama in the ad, which was widely criticized at the time of its release in April. The ad paints a nightmarish vision of modern city life and states that “the only way to save our country, the only way to fight this violence of lies is with the clenched fist of truth.”

In a statement issued by a New York gallery that represents him, Kapoor also said that his sculpture and other works of iconic modern architecture were used by the NRA in the ad to represent a hidden and threatening “other,” or a version of “Liberal America” against which NRA members need to arm themselves....

Here's “The Clenched Fist of Truth” — which I'd never have noticed without Kapoor's complaint:



I was going to say Streisand effect, but I don't think Kapoor's speaking out hurts the very interest he is trying to promote. He's getting a platform for expressing his anti-NRA beliefs, and he's calling attention to his artwork, which appears in so much photography that he can't possibly control. You can't dominate a public square with a stationary piece of personal expression and then limit the speech of everyone who uses the square. You can only keep talking, contributing more speech, and that's what Kapoor is doing.

Like the Statue of Liberty in NYC, the "bean" — officially, "Cloud Gate" — irretrievably merges with popular culture:

The sculpture has been used as a backdrop in commercial films, notably in the 2006 Hollywood film The Break-Up...  the ending scene of Source Code...  The Vow when the lead characters share a kiss under it. It also appears in the video to "Homecoming", a song by Chicago native Kanye West...  The sculpture is also featured in the 2008 mumblecore film Nights and Weekends. It was also featured in the Bollywood film Dhoom 3 and the 2014 movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction...  A modified reproduction of Cloud Gate is also included in Watch Dogs....

There is a copyright issue here, but I'm not going to explain it.

ADDED: When you're pushing a minimal version of the Second Amendment, you're helping the other side if you simultaneously push a minimal version of the First Amendment. The NRA (in that very video) warns that our freedom is at stake. Don't threaten non-gun freedoms or you enhance the NRA's message! And that advice applies even though — or especially because — Kapoor is not an American.