The Blackest Black and the Great Colour Wars
When we think of colours, it has always fascinated us how so many of us these days tend to take them for granted. We are part of this generation where one could easily walk into the nearest shop or not even having to (through the aides of technological advancements) and purchase any colour we deem fit for ourselves.
This was, however, not the case just some half a century ago. In 1960, French artist Yves Klein patented his own shade of deep blue, now notoriously known as the International Klein Blue (IKB), his was the reality of the lives of artists or anyone who desired to own their own colours back then. Acquiring colour was a laborious process to deal with. A process one could only fathom by either acquainting themselves to pigment alchemist (called “colourmen”), a silk road trader, or through having networks in Venice as the trading capital of the world.
It appears so that this is the root cause of the peculiar feud that occurred just a few months ago, a rare occasion where we saw the art community being deeply entrenched in a series of social media exchanges, a territory one would think is reserved for the so-called politic experts and internet trolls. It was Anish Kapoor vs. the people. Over his exclusive rights to blackest black, the colour Vantablack.
We, the generation that is so used to getting our hands on colours with the blink of an eye, were finally being forced to let go of some of that power and settle with more “traditional means” of the craft by sourcing our own colour.
The colour itself, the Vantablack has, by all means, amplified the enigmatic concept of black. It is the blackest known material to men, which absorbs 99.96% of light (as opposed to the 93% absorption of store-bought black pigments), giving anyone who gazes upon it the fear of oblivion for it gives out no clue of texture, shape, or even three-dimensionality.
Developed by Ben Jensen just three years ago in Surrey NanoSystems, a small company in Newhaven, Surrey, it is technically not a colour or a pigment at all, but rather a molecular trap for light. Consisting of carbon nanotubes, they are grown like blades of grass at a few hundred degrees for just 12 seconds. Which is why when they unveiled the colour at the Farborough International Air Show in July 2014, Mr Jensen had to turn down numerous requests that to him, is simply preposterous.
The Vantablack was initially created for NASA’s telescopes. These Vantablack telescopes would finally be solving the age-old problem of observing stars and their surroundings, it would allow astronomers to finally see past their glares and observe nearby objects or the star itself at ease. Only afterwards did the military thought of it to be useful for their radars and missile systems.
Then the fashion and art community caught up, top designers, renowned artists and famous celebrities lined up to have their work coated in Vantablack. These offers sadly had to be turned down, as the Vantablack could only be applied through a reactor at 400 degrees Celsius, a feat no clothing, canvas, nor sculpture, no matter how well known the artists were, could achieve.
Yet when Mr Jensen was contacted by Anish Kapoor’s office, he could not help but be intrigued. “Honestly, I’m a bit of an art philistine. I know what I like, but I don’t know much about it. But I walked into his studio that day and inhaled my breath. The vision… the way he works with light and shadow and reflection…” stated Mr Jensen on his decision to grant Anish Kapoor the first and only rights to using Vantablack in artworks.
Anish Kapoor’s fascination with the colour black is quite reasonable too. Over the course of history, black has been a symbol of death, mourning, evil magic, and darkness, yet it has also passionately described elegance, wealth, restraint, and even power. The Vantablack, being the blackest of all black, amplifies these features to new unimaginable heights.
“Imagine walking into a room where you literally have no sense of the walls,” Kapoor said as he talked about what he plans to do with his rights over Vantablack.
“Where the walls are or if there are any walls at all. It’s not an empty dark room, but a space full of darkness… This has haunted us through literature, science and art — the invisible, the non-space or the non-object… Loss of self and fear go hand in hand. Inevitably, we bump into fear, death and all the human realities of an emotional world — as an artist especially, but always as a human being.”
Wondrous as the project may sound, the public’s reactions were far from satisfying, some were even downright outraged.
Artist Stuart Semple led the online campaign #sharetheblack which quickly took off on various social media platforms. He also proceeded to create his own line of pigments, the “world’s colouriest powder paints” that comes in pink, yellow, green, and blue and made them available to everyone except Anish Kapoor. To purchase them, one also has to sign a contract that they are not Anish Kapoor, are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, are not purchasing this item on the behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. Also that to the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make it’s way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.
Many joined in and purchased his paints simply in protest towards Anish Kapoor. And so the colour wars began.
“The colouriest powder paints” collection did eventually make themselves to the hands of Anish Kapoor, who then posted a picture of his middle finger dipped in “the pinkest pink of them all” on Instagram and captioned it “up yours #sharethepink”. And once again the public raged.
User @tonoolvera summed up the mood: “What a disgrace of an artist. Art is not supposed to be about greed and selfishness. You managed to poison what is meant to be an inspiration to mankind’s collective spirit. You want your black? Keep it. A real artist doesn’t need this type of ‘exclusivity’ as the value of their work comes from within, not from business deals they make with some company. Your art is tarnished because of your malice.”
The funny thing about the public’s opinion has always been on how they seem to always lack the simple act of critical thought. Anish Kapoor never intended to have the one and only right to use the Vantablack, he simply did what many of his contemporaries did, he had reached out to Ben Jensen and asked him if it were possible to use Vantablack in his sculptures and Ben Jensen agreed, under very strict terms and conditions.
This agreement is based on mutual respect and admiration between Anish Kapoor and Ben Jensen. The two are regularly meeting to find the perfect way to present a Vantablack sculpture. It is not an agreement where Anish Kapoor could simply take the Vantablack and smother it on anything as he wishes. Contrary to the public’s beliefs, it is a long term work contract that involves many experimentations and planning. Anish Kapoor’s strict work ethics (displayed for example in his cautiousness for the portrayal of the Cloud Gate in photographs during its reveal) and awareness of actions and details is what really assured Ben Jensen that he is the right artist to work with the Vantablack that requires special handling, the type of handling that so far is only possessed by NASA and military personnel. It is also, as Ben Jensen has confirmed, simply his first collaboration with the art community, should it succeed, who’s to say which artist will he collaborate with next?
However, we do have to admit that Kapoor’s reactions could have been managed better. His obscene gestures and comments only fuelled the flames that were already directed towards him, he could have instead issued a statement to clarify his stance and his agreement with Surrey NanoSystems, yet he has done none of those.
Now, nearly 6 months later, the social media presence of #sharetheblack has abated, and like many of these events, it seems as though the world has moved on and forgotten all about it. Anish Kapoor continues to present his works and continues to meet with Ben Jensen, his reputation seemingly untarnished.
Though we must admit that it would be intriguing to see what the Vantablack would manifest itself into in the hands of Jeff Koons and Banksy, at the moment, we can only eagerly wait in anticipation for the masterpiece that is Anish Kapoor’s Vantablack. And in the words of the creator of Vantablack, Ben Jensen himself “It’s quite amazing,” he says, “how emotional people get about the colour black.” After all, he says, “it’s everywhere.”
Bibliography
Delaney, B. (2016, September 26). ‘You could disappear into it’: Anish Kapoor on his exclusive rights to the ‘blackest black’. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-kapoor-vantablack-art-architecture-exclusive-rights-to-the-blackest-black
McGurk, S. (2017, August 4). Who’s behind art’s dark little secret, Vantablack? GQ Magazine, 08(2017). Retrieved from http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/magazine/August-2017
Pastoureau, M., & Gladding, J. (2009). Black: The history of a color. Princeton (N.J, FI: Princeton University Press.
