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The art world is a weird and wonderful place at the best of times, so is it really that shocking to have an artist ask you to join their cult?
Thats exactly what Stuart Semple is doing on his mission, to put the cult back into culture.
Semple is an artist who believes art should be accessible, and bring people together.
In order to join the cult, you must watch a video from Semple, then use what you learnt from watching to answer a few questions, before submitting yourself to the cult, or the mailing list if truth be told.
Thankfully, emails from the ‘cult’ are usually only sent out once a month, and are jam packed with interesting information and news.
Emails from the ‘cult’ contain new products, codes for money off, and plenty of fun extras, but it may leave you asking exactly why there needs to be a ‘cult’ in the art world.
For Semple, the answer is to bring a community together, and in turn have that community create art that brings a wider community together, and to shut out one single man as much as possible.
It all came around after some rather nefarious artist drama involving Sir Anish Kapoor.
Kapoor is best known for having created Cloud Gate, better known as the Chicago bean, and is a rather rich and powerful man.
When a pigment came about in the art world known as ‘the worlds blackest black’, just about every artist wanted the chance to get their hands on it, but Kapoor decided he should be the only one to utilise the light absorbing pigment, going ahead to purchase the exclusive rights to use it.
This understandably upset the art world, and showed that those at the top all too often want to keep it as an elite and inaccessible community.
Stuart Semple decided he wouldn’t just sit back and take this though, and he created the incredibly bright ‘worlds pinkest pink’.
It went up for sale at the same amount it cost to make, and artists all of the world could purchase and use it, except one.
In order to check out with the item, you first had to confirm that you were not Sir Anish Kapoor, would not share it with Sir Anish Kapoor, and to the best of your knowledge, it would in no way end up in the hands of Sir Anish Kapoor.
All good things must come to an end, and Kapoor did eventually get his hands on the worlds pinkest pink, sticking his middle finger into it and posting a picture on Instagram.
It wasn’t all bad though, doing so earned him numerous comments saying ‘okay bean boy’, a nickname which continues to stick with him, and motivated Stuart to dive fully into creating an art community much more open and accepting than those that have come before.
Joining a cult might not be everyones goal, but this is a cult that anyone with any artistic inkling should be a part of. Follow this link to join the cult.