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Vantablack, the pigment considered the blackest shade of black on the planet, is currently the source of commotion among the art world.
Sir Anish Kapoor, the London-based sculptor responsible for the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture for the 2012 Olympics, now owns exclusive rights to the color. According to the Daily Mail, the announcement has sparked outrage amongst other artists who see Kapoor as monopolizing a material that should belong to everyone.
Despite its sexy name, the hue has very technical origins. The substance, made of light-trapping carbon nanotubes, was developed by scientists at Surrey NanoSystems in 2014 for military and astonautical use. In other words, Vantablack, which absorbs 99.96% of light, helps disguise satellites and stealth fighter jets, and it appears almost flat to the naked eye.
For Kapoor, whose work includes experiments with reflections and voids, the abyss-like Vantablack is a natural choice in medium. When he announced he'd be using the material last year, Surrey NanoSystems CTO Ben Jensen told the New York Times, "We never imagined we would be involved with something like that, but his ideas are infectious, and my research scientists love that their work could be used this way."
BBC's The One Show commissioned a bronze bust of presenter Marty Jopson and coated it in Vantablack. The piece is currently on view through June in the Science Museum in London. The rest of the world will have to wait to see how Kapoor uses the pigment. In an interview with BBC Radio 4, the world-famous artist said "It's effectively like a paint... Imagine a space that's so dark that as you walk in you lose all sense of where you are, what you are, and especially all sense of time."
