In a weird ongoing war over the blackest black and pinkest pink in the world, a new contender has hit the market — and unlike Vantablack, anyone can purchase some to make really dark artwork (great for black holes!).

Stuart Semple’s blackest salvo to date in this pigment war is Black 2.0, which can create mesmerizing effects in real life that also translate to images and videos. In them, painted objects appear flat, or like voids rather than solids.

According to its creators, “its the most pigmented, flattest, mattest, black acrylic paint in the world,” a claim backed up by a lot of black-coated objects juxtaposed with lighter and brighter surroundings.

This pigment “was created in close collaboration with color chemists, specialists from the cosmetics industry and architectural coatings experts. It’s foundation is Stuart’s ‘Super-Base’ which enables this paint to hold more pigment than any other whilst drying to an anti-reflective, super flat finish.”

An implicit stab at the Vantablack exclusivity arrangement: “It has been developed in close collaboration with thousands of artists from all over the world. Their amazing insight, support and inspiration has formed this unique super-black paint for the benefit of all artists.”

Semple admits it’s not truly the blackest paint when compared to Vantablack, clarifying that it is just the blackest acrylic and blackest paint available to all artists, not just one who secured exclusive rights — note: this black is available to everyone but that artist (via MyModernMet).

For the past few years, British artist Anish Kapoor has been making use of his exclusive rights to something called Vantablack, a high-tech pigment touted as the blackest shade of black. His unique access, however, has sparked an escalating (and increasingly absurd) feud in the art world.

Developed by NanoSystems, the remarkable Vantablack pigment uses microscopic tubes oriented to capture light and deflect it internally rather than letting it bounce in a way visible to viewers. Designed for military and astronomical applications, it absorbs an incredible 99.96% of light.

But Kapoor’s usage rights have been criticized by other artists like painter Christian Furr who see it as monopolistic, limiting the potential of other creatives to explore artistic potential of the material.

“Using pure black in an artwork grounds it,” he notes. “All the best artists have had a thing for pure black – Turner, Manet, Goya. This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it – it isn’t right that it belongs to one man.”

Recently, as a sort of satirical retaliation, British artist Stuart Semple created a flourescent pink pigment, designed to be the “pinkest pink” in the world. To drive the point home, the shade is available for purchase (just a few dollars per pot) to anyone on the planet except Kapoor, who is legally banned from buying the stuff.

Anyone placing an order has to agree that they are not Anish Kapoor, nor associated with him or purchasing it on his behalf. It is designed to be the exact opposite of the blackest black, reflecting a maximum amount of light to make it appear as garishly bright as possible.

Kapoor, however, managed to procure some anyway, posting images on social media and further fanning the flames of this off-color artistic war.

“I was really sad and disappointed that he felt so left out that he needed to orchestrate some conspiracy to steal our pink,” says Semple. “It would be nice if he owned up, said sorry and gave me my Pink back.” All in all, his reactions paint Kapoor as somewhat petty given his own exclusive use of the blackest black.

Semple, meanwhile, has also created the “world’s most glittery glitter”, “the “world’s greenest green” and the “world’s yellowest yellow” and is similarly banning Kapoor once again from these creations — at this point, presumably any reaction would paint Kapoor further into a corner.

The idea of artists “owning” a color is not unique to this particular feud. A deep shade of blue (International Klein Blue) was patented by an artist decades ago. Since his death, however, it has been used in various contexts, including by performers of the Blue Man Group.

Looking as much like a mad science laboratory as a conservator’s dream workshop, this pigment library is populated with color samples from around the world, all helping preservationists maintain and restore historical works of art and design.

The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums puts is jars, bottles and glasses on display for the public to see in glass cabinetry, but also uses them like a witch doctor would employ esoteric medicines. An analogy could also be drawn to seed vaults, which likewise store and preserve precious and sensitive materials for future use.

From Colossal, “The Forbes pigment collection was started by its namesake—Straus Center founder and former Fogg Art Museum Director Edward Forbes who began the collection at the turn of the 20th century. Forbes would collect his samples from his travels all over the world, bringing back pigments from excavated sites at Pompeii to rare lapis lazuli found in Afghanistan.”

Forbes became interested in preservation when a 14th-Century piece he purchased began to visibly fade, sparking him to learn more about the materials and processes around paintings and their preservation.

The origins of the various colors are often stories in themselves, from modern synthetics to obscure organics, like an ‘Indian Yellow’ made from the urine of cows fed only mango leaves. (Images via Peter Vanderwarker, Zak Jensen and Andrea Shea/WBUR)