ALT

Here you go, @quark-nova.

Thanks a lot! I saw the second post but not the first so I was missing a lot of the important context (notably the fact that Kapoor was selected by the company who developed Vantablack, rather than decide to "greedily keep it for itself" as the narrative goes)

Also, it's not a pigment or a paint. He can't "greedily keep it to himself" because you physically cannot use it. It's an application of carbon nanotubes. It has to be done in a lab under extremely controlled conditions. It's also not actually made for art but for industrial applications. The company that developed it decided they wanted to show off their neat new process, so they decided to pick one artist to work with.

The company's CEO stated that they picked Kapoor specifically because of his previous work, namely stuff like The Bean. So, again, they were never going to pick Semple or any of the other white dudes who whined really loudly in the press, and why? Because they don't do art like that at all.

So yeah.

Just wanted to mention, there’s also a pervasive idea that Anish Kapoor hates Cloud Gate being called the bean, (many notes to the tune of “his only crime is being pompous about what we call his statue ) but the only public quote I’ve been able to find from him on it is “It’s great for it to have a colloquial name, its own lingo. I call it ‘The Bean,’ too.”

Stuart Simple also had a habit of underpaying/not at all paying his understudies. Yea this is a tabloid but the court case still happened