One artist got exclusive artistic access to Vantablack, an ultra-black material that swallows almost all visible light. Another answered with Pinkest Pink, a sales ban aimed at one very specific person, and one of modern art’s funniest public feuds.
It sounds like the set-up to a very niche joke: Anish Kapoor gets the blackest black, Stuart Semple makes the pinkest pink, and suddenly the entire art world is discussing pigment like it is a geopolitical resource. But the Anish Kapoor versus Stuart Semple feud is more than a glorious bit of pettiness. It asks who gets access to experimental materials, whether an artist can make a colour exclusive, and what happens when another artist decides the only sensible reply is to make better colours for everyone else.
We take you through the Vantablack controversy, the rise of Culture Hustle, the notorious Pinkest Pink protest and the surprisingly serious ideas hiding under the memes. This is a modern art scandal in which materials science, creative ownership and childish revenge all turn out to be inseparable.
What Happened in the Anish Kapoor and Stuart Semple Feud?
Vantablack was developed by Surrey NanoSystems as an ultra-black coating based on carbon nanotubes. Rather than behaving like an ordinary tube of black paint, it absorbs an extraordinary amount of light, making surfaces appear startlingly flat or void-like. The effect is so strange because our eyes use reflected light to understand shape. Take enough reflection away and a three-dimensional object can suddenly look as though it has no depth at all.
There were practical reasons why Vantablack was never a casual art-shop material. It was developed for technical applications, needed specialist handling and was not simply a colour that could be scooped into a jar. Yet, in 2016, news spread that Anish Kapoor had obtained exclusive rights to use it for artistic purposes. Kapoor was already an internationally established sculptor, so the prospect of seeing what he could do with the material made sense. The problem was the exclusivity: many other artists felt a new medium had been effectively removed from them before they had been allowed to experiment with it.
Stuart Semple turned that resentment into a public performance. Semple had made work around participation and accessible art materials, and he responded by releasing Pinkest Pink through Culture Hustle. The pigment was sold with an infamous condition: anyone could buy it except Anish Kapoor, anyone affiliated with Anish Kapoor, or anyone buying it for Anish Kapoor. It was funny, pointed and instantly shareable. What could have remained a contractual disagreement between an artist and a technology company became a worldwide argument about colour, scarcity and creative access.
The joke escalated when an Instagram image appeared showing Kapoor’s middle finger covered in Pinkest Pink. Semple treated the image as proof that his exclusion clause had been bypassed, and the story became an internet-age feud in full: declarations, counter-products, public mockery and a vast audience willing to take sides over pigments. We unpack what each side was actually claiming and why the image became such a perfect symbol of the clash.
For Semple, the answer was not simply to complain about Vantablack. He collaborated with artists and materials specialists on alternatives, including increasingly dark black paints such as Black 2.0, Black 3.0 and Black 4.0. He also released glitter, white and other experimental materials with the same theatrical anti-Kapoor language. Some claims were plainly playful marketing, but the underlying point was clear: experimental art materials could be made more affordable and usable for a much wider community.
The feud is often reported as though Kapoor had copyrighted the colour black. That is not what happened. Vantablack is a patented coating technology, not a universal ownership claim over every black pigment or every artist’s use of darkness. The controversy was about a particular artistic licence around a particular technology. That nuance matters, because it explains why the conflict could be both genuinely significant and extraordinarily silly.
We follow the later twists, including Semple’s activism, the products that became part of his wider Culture Hustle project and the moments where the feud spilled beyond the internet. Rather than handing you every punchline and every last escalation, we leave the most ridiculous turns for the podcast. The real pleasure here is watching the argument mutate from one exclusive coating into a full-on public philosophy of sharing materials.
Why This Story Matters
Art materials are not neutral. A new pigment or process can change what an artist is able to make, so access matters even when the argument looks childish from the outside. The Vantablack dispute made a normally hidden part of the art world visible: specialist materials are often expensive, patented, technically demanding and controlled by manufacturers. Kapoor’s licence became a lightning rod for anxieties about money, prestige and who gets to experiment.
Semple’s counterattack also understood the internet better than most art-world disputes. Pinkest Pink was not just a product; it was a participatory joke. Buyers had to declare themselves part of the gag, then could post, paint and share the result. That allowed thousands of people to feel as though they had joined an art protest, even if they had never set foot in a gallery. It was clever activism, clever marketing and a very public act of trolling at once.
Most of all, it is a reminder that art can be serious without becoming solemn. Behind the jokes are questions about ownership, innovation and openness. We keep the final state of the feud for the podcast, where we can enjoy the absurdity while still asking whether a colour can ever really belong to one person.
It is also proof that a tiny pot of paint can start a surprisingly large conversation, particularly when nobody is prepared to share their crayons.
Topics Include
What Vantablack is and why it looks so unnaturally black
Anish Kapoor’s exclusive artistic licence and the backlash
Stuart Semple’s Pinkest Pink protest
The infamous Instagram finger photograph
Black 4.0, Culture Hustle and accessible art materials
Colour exclusivity, patents and artistic activism