Color Wars
January 2017 In 2014 Anish Kapoor secured exclusive rights to Vantablack - the blackest black ever created, able to absorb 99.9% of all light. Kapoor's 'exclusive rights' to this hue angered fellow British artist Stuart Semple who took his revenge by banning Kapoor from PINK, which Semple claims is the pinkest pink ever created. Anyone purchasing PINK had to sign a legal declaration insisting Kapoor wouldn't have access. The other day Kapoor posted the above photo, with his middle finger dipped in the color. The entire drama has the scale and plot of a fable about man narrated by gods. The art industry assigns glamor while making naked all of capitalism's irony. When value is only attributed through the possibility of exchange to lay hold of something and insist 'no, mine' is a move I can enjoy, if not take seriously. I don't know if this is the pinkest pink ever created. It's certainly the angriest - like a capful of pepto bismol boiled with highlighter fluid. What do we require of pink for it to double down on its essence? If the blackest black is the one that aborts the most light what does pinkest pink do? I think the rest of the color wheel's intensity is gauged more subjectively. Pink trended last few years because monochromatic athleisure liberated us from assumptions about strength in darkness, or masculinity - so did a very dark world, new ways of being confronted with old violence, and at greater frequency. Suddenly we were not risking looking soft, we were desperate to. It was a reassurance policy. Like all trends, the impulse towards softness was emotionally driven and texturally expressed. Sweatsuits and fleeces, shearling and suede. Now we're in search of something with better camouflage in our cities. Industrial worker jumpsuits, reflective tape color scheme bombers, hoodies with exaggerated proportions. Look for highlighter colors and jewel tones, pastels are over. All the muppet colored furs from Fendi all the way to J Crew, it's not fake animal skin it's our own. And we're finally wearing it with a new aggression (don't mistake it for whimsy). People gave softness a try, but it's no way to dress for a feud.