The Vantablacka material invented by Surrey Nanosystems, It was presented in 2014 as a kind of “super black“.”This material is the most black material in the universe. More black than a black hole. Absorbs 99.8 % of the whole light “: so the famous British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor he announced to be experimenting with him: in practice, the Vantablack is not a “painting” but consists of a very dense field of carbon dwarfs heated in a reactor at very high temperatures. Another artist, Stuart Semple, he decided to “challenge” Kapoor in the realization of the black black one, making his color, the Black 4.0 Available to everyone except at the rival, while the MIT scientists in collaboration with the artist Diemut Strabein 2019, created a material that absorbs light to 99.995 %which made the discussion even more intense.
The dispute on the use of the “most black black that is” in art
Although he had been presented for military purposes, Kapoor had believed in artistic potential of the Vantablack by signing a contract that guaranteed him exclusive rights for the use of the new material in painting and sculpture (To his own, to ensure its production, being so complex). The choice to preserve exclusivity on a color – unheard of in the world of art – has triggered a long controversy between creatives. The most famous answer is that of the artist Stuart Semplewho decided to create not only a “better” black, the Black 4.0but also to invent and produce the “pink pink there is” And “the most glitter glitter there is“, making these colors available to everyone except Kapoor himself (and, be careful, anyone who purchases them must confirm that they are not him and not to have the intention of giving them). During the Venice Biennale 2022 Kapoor finally revealed the first”Vantablack works“In a double exhibition at the Galleries of the Academy and Palazzo Manfrin, works that today cost the million euros each: The exhibition showed how this coating creates an alienating optical effect, giving the illusion of two -dimensionality.
The new “black blacks”
In reality, this precious black is no longer so exclusive: a bit because Semple presented his in 2023 Black 4.0, which would be equally absorbent compared to the Vantablack, but above all because several years before another artist, Diemut Strabecreated with MIT scientists “A Black Black “by the Vantablack: let’s talk about a material that absorbs light to 99.995 %. This material, presented in 2019, also consists of carbon nanotubes, combined with a aluminum substrate treated with chlorine: This combination of chemical and structural factors makes it able to “trap” almost all the visible light that affects it. Far from being used mainly in the artistic field, this material has numerous industrial applicationsmainly in the optical field, to eliminate reflections and spuries in telescopes and other high precision optical tools.
