Artist Stuart Semple has landed another body blow against superstar Anish Kapoor, creating a second product the Bombay-born artist is banned from using.
Diamond Dust, billed as the world’s most sparkly glitter, made from tiny flakes of glass, will never appear in Kapoor’s oeuvre if Semple has his way.
Stuart Semple’s Diamond Dust. Courtesy the artist.
It all started when Kapoor landed the exclusive rights to use the pigment Vantablack, billed as the world’s darkest pigment and said to absorb 99.96 percent of light. Artists were predictably outraged, though Kapoor told the Guardian that the maker, Surrey NanoSystems, couldn’t produce enough to go around anyway.
But that didn’t satisfy Semple, who lashed out at Kapoor, with tongue firmly in cheek, by producing a pigment he branded the world’s pinkest pink, which Kapoor was barred from buying, per a statement on Semple’s website:
By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make it’s [sic] way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.
Now Semple has further restricted Kapoor’s output by banning him from using the new material, which he touts as 99.8 percent clear and which claims comes in larger and more random shapes than normal diamond dust, which he says makes it more reflective.
More than forty of Kapoor’s works have sold for north of $1 million at auction, according to the artnet Price Database; his current auction high is $3.9 million, set at Sotheby’s London in 2008. How exactly the London-based artist will continue to produce his work without Semple’s materials is not entirely clear at publication time.