I know tumblr has fun with this post but the amount of misinformation and fact twisting contained in it makes me mad everytime I see it. So I removed the reblogs so if you dont like what I have to say then at least you won’t have to scroll too far to read it.
Basically, the entire premise of this feud is flawed. Anish Kapoor did not buy a color he bought a product. It was the company that made that products choice to sell it to him.
Nothing was stopping other people from making their own black paint. To me Stewart Semples reaction was an obvious bid for attention, which while understandable when success is measured in popularity, isn’t the hero move this post portrays it as. Especially in light of Semple continuing to profit and gain recognition off of this feud. His continued put downs of another artist in order to raise himself up are distasteful.
The hatred of Kapoor is also way overblown. I admit to disliking him somewhat by default based on the fact that he’s rich but I don’t think the fact that he wants his art to be called the called the name he gave it (cloudgate vs the bean) is unreasonable just silly. And while its true he did copyright its image the only instance I see of him going after anyone regarding it is when he sued the NRA (good for him) and won. Im aware he doesn’t really need me defending him and that is not my intent, I just cringe to see misinformation being spread for some sort of weird petty schadenfreude. Theres a lot of accusations of him being elitist or hating poor people in this post and maybe thats true (I dont know him, and to be honest I never heard of him before this post made him public enemy number 1) but I haven’t seen it come up elsewhere just from tumblr.
In regards to Semple…he’s not the “power to the people” hero tumblr seems to think he is and aparently doesn’t even pay his staff properly Source - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/artist-stuart-semple-in-row-with-assistants-who-say-they-weren-t-paid-9132088.html im not equipped to do a deep dive on him right now but I would advise against putting him on a pedestal like I see some of you doing.
Basically…theres more to this story than what this thread of reblogs is telling you, and I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. Ignore, believe it, do your own research…up to you.
As another Jew of Indian heritage the way people talk about Anish Kapoor always stings in a very particular way. (I’ll also stress the particularly cruel anti South Asian racism in Britain)
There are not many of us in the world and interesting works of modern public art around the world, especially cloud gate but also his other mirror installations, that are freely available to the public. Should be something that remind us of the survival and success of members of our community, but instead have become a focal point of antisemitic rhetoric spread across wonder bread levels of colonial racism, that people are failing to critically analyse because they’re caught up in the communal joke.
He is not the only wealthy pompous artist, but he is likely the only one who’s name you know, alongside another wealthy pompous artist Stuart Semple who has managed to mythologise his character, and build his brand through the use of age old antisemitic and anti-indian rhetoric.
The Jew is rich and he is greedy, the Indian is a thief.
If you have reblogged this post in the past because it was funny, you should reblog this.
Stuart Semple is a serial wage thief and labour exploiter, manipulating the facts to manufacture a controversy to sell his personal brand of pigments…. And you are all of you swallowing it, complete with the racism and antisemitism.
Stewart Semple also did not hesitate for even a moment to get immediately into shilling NFTs during the height of that grift. No scruples, just good PR.
Yes, AND Stewart Semple has made some incredibly important work at earlier stages of his career. Namely, his work combating stigma around HIV and homophobia..
Nobody is saying that Stuart Semple is evil and he’s never had well intentioned projects, he can be an excellent pigment manufacturer, and an exploiter of his employees labour, the creator of thoughtful and hard hitting activist art pieces like his 2020 Gay Blood inks, and dive head first into the NFT grift, not consider himself racist or antisemitic, but be using racist and antisemitic rhetoric.
People are typically more complicated than simply good or bad, and I want people to recognise that he is disingenuously manipulating the facts, and his behaviour does not make him a hero of any kind. A feud requires tit for tat, when it’s one sided we call it obsession or harassment.
People in the comments who know very little about Anish Kapoor referring to him as a “conservative” and that people like Semple are an example of how to deal with “people like them” is extremely troubling. Kapoor is a lifelong campaigner for public education, he is a fierce critic of conservative politics both in Britain and in India. He is wealthy, but his wealth is not the product of failure to pay employees their contract wages unlike Semple.
I also want to draw attention to the fact that Kapoor’s installations are regularly the target of antisemitic graffiti.
The anti-kapoor mania you are seeing and (as a community) creating on Tumblr does nothing but add fuel.
In a world of rising antisemitic violence, it is distressing to see the excitement with which you are all hating one Jew who you are told stole something that was never available to the public in the first place.
