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.

Sexism or security – why not both? Pretty pink women-only parking spaces show once again that best intentions can bring about unintentional consequences.

A curious fact about designated women-only parking is that many of the most obvious examples can be found in developing nations – societies not exactly known for egalitarianism and women’s rights. Travelers from First World countries who notice these “pink paradises” are often bemused by both the concept and the location, as is the case with Canadian blogger Maiya of Hungry Woman Eats who snapped the Ladies Parking section at the Gandaria City Mall in Djakarta, Indonesia.

Shanghai Surprise

Women-only parking has come under fire, however, from (among others) women’s rights groups who are offended by the pink paint, cutesy signage and (in some cases) the extra width allotted to each space. Some men are peeved as well, including a netizen who posted on xinmin.cn “Isn’t it a kind of discrimination against men drivers? Some men may be less skilled at parking than women.” Hurt feelings aside, who’s taking the fall for the glossy floors of these women-only parking spaces at the Wandu Center in Shanghai, China? You try navigating that slick expanse on a rainy day, loaded down with shopping bags, and wearing stilletto heels.

One Tire Over The Line

Without the benefit of a distance-shot, we’ll just have to assume this rather stark and (mainly) sexism-free Ladies’ Parking sign at a Brescia, Italy rest area denotes at least two parking spaces reserved for the fairer sex. We’ll refrain from commenting on the above driver’s parking technique, however, and make no allusions to their gender. Kudos to photographer Stefano Bolognini, who visited the location – that may even be HIS poorly parked car – in 2007.

Turkish Delight

Why did ladies’ parking get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’… and business must be very good indeed at the MarkAntalya Mall in Antalya, Turkey. Not content with working up a couple of pink parking spots just for show, the mall has designated a whopping 450 parking spots for women, most of them selected for their convenient location to mall entrances. It’s “positive discrimination” in action – their words, not ours.

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Park Like A Girl Women Frustrated With Pink Ladies Parking Places

Splashed with bright buckets of paint from roofs and windows, the colorfully defaced buildings of downtown Johannesburg have evoked different reactions from supports and detractors who variously see this work as an act of protest or crime of vandalism. Before we delve too deep into the sides represented, keep in mind that Beware of Colour employed water-soluble paint in these interventions.

Colombian-American Yazmany Arboleda and the other artists behind the work note that all of the buildings targeted have been abandoned for decades despite a housing crisis – a fifth of the region’s population needs a place to live, currently dwelling in shanties or on the streets. Historic preservationists, meanwhile, decry the defacement and suggest that other methods could be used to raise public awareness of civic problems.

The case is more complicated, though, than either single viewpoint might suggest and the case for preservation is nuanced. As CityLab’s Ryan Lenora Brown points out, “appealing to history in contemporary South Africa is hardly a straightforward matter. Buildings like Shakespeare House were originally built for the exclusive use of whites, back when Johannesburg’s inner city was the center of one of the modern world’s most infamous projects of racial segregation …. The slumped and broken building has become a symbol for a different Johannesburg, one blighted by decades of white flight and municipal neglect.”

Arborleda was eventually caught with a crew of people and arrested for “malicious destruction of property” after being spotted entering one of the buildings on their list. This has, for now, put an end to this particular vintage of urban activism in South Africa.

Most of the structures the 30-some artists threw paint upon are either owned by the city or by Urban Ocean, a development group with a significant number of centrally-located and historical holdings. It remains to be seen whether this project will make a difference in the course of the city’s development, or become just another piece in the area’s persistently puzzling blight.