The artist behind The Bean, a beloved tourist attraction in Chicago’s Millennium Park, is in a seriously petty Instagram feud over the color black. Not just any black—Vantablack, the blackest black known to man, designed by Surrey NanoSystems to absorb 99.965 percent of visible light.
Anish Kapoor—creator of the kidney-shaped, reflective artwork that is officially called Cloud Gate but known more colloquially as “the bean”—was so drawn to Vantablack that he bought the exclusive rights to it, causing a storm in the art world.
In response, British artist Stuart Semple created “The World’s Pinkest Pink.” It’s available to purchase on Semple’s website to anyone except Kapoor, who, according to Semple, “won’t even share his black.” One of the big draws to The World’s Pinkest Pink is that it “goes bonkers” under a blacklight, seemingly a further knock on Vantablack. What’s more, a disclaimer on Semple’s website reads: