When Captain Peter Mærsk Møller acquired his first steamship, he made sure it would be noticed far and wide by painting its chimney the color of the sky. What was initially whimsy – breaking with the staid practice of coloring chimneys coal black – became a distinguishing feature of the shipping company his family built over the next century.
Several years ago, A.P Moller Maersk surveyed people in the shipping industry. Eighty-eight percent associated Maersk blue with the company. This survey was not conducted out of idle curiosity. It was included in a trademark application that also provided a detailed history tracing the paint color back to Peter Mærsk Møller’s original steamship purchase in 1886. Altogether these materials convinced the Danish Patent and Trademark Office to recognize the color itself as a corporate trademark. Maersk blue was made private property in Denmark.
Hannibal Andersen, Privatiseringens abstrakte udtryk, 2022. Photo by Hannibal Andersen.
The Danish artist Hannibal Andersen was not pleased. Even though Maersk’s trademark applies strictly to sea freight transport, and has no bearing on the use of Maersk blue in other industries let alone artwork, he was affronted by the corporate takeover of colors in principle, and concerned that the entire spectrum might ultimately be controlled. There is enough color for everyone, he has said, “but not enough for everyone to get one of their very own”.
As an act of resistance, Andersen recently painted a mural using Maersk blue and Grundfos red, which is also trademarked in Denmark. (Grundfos manufactures water pumps. According to the company, ninety-six percent of people in the water industry associate red with the brand.) Commissioned by Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Andersen’s mural covers the side of a building in Copenhagen. The colors are combined to make a logo of his own composition: a dollar sign inverted to evoke a question mark punctuated with an exclamation point.
Hannibal Andersen, $!?, 2022. Gavlmaleri, Gothersgade 54, København. Photo by Hannibal Andersen.
Andersen’s mural is complemented by an installation inside the Kunsthal, where he has assembled a sort of library of colors claimed as trademarks throughout the European Union. To ensure that his motivations are clear, he has titled this work The Abstract Expression of Privatization.
These works are not Andersen’s first efforts to show how the power to make meaning is foundational to making money. Several years ago, he melted down a 20 kroner coin and used the alloy to cast a new coin in the same form, subversively converting genuine Danish currency into a worthless forgery. His simple act illustrated the numinous quality of fiat money and the extent to which the economy is predicated on legal arrangements as much as physical commodities.
When a coin is struck at a mint, meaning is coined in a durable form that will persist for as long as the coin remains in circulation. Yet the meaning is not wholly controlled by the issuing authority. For instance, a change in consumer behavior or beliefs can cause inflation that can alter the value of a krone or dollar or euro. With the inflation rate approaching nine percent in Denmark, the significance of Danish kroner is quickly shifting.
Might similar leverage be applied deliberately in terms of trademarked colors? There is precedent in the satirical use of trademarks by artists including Tom Sachs and Andy Warhol, in paintings and sculptures that poke fun at corporations such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. But if Andersen seriously wants to discredit the system by which colors are controlled by corporations, he’ll need to take a more active role in destabilizing it. Like his forged 20 kroner coin, which genuinely elicits anxiety about the stability of money, his work with these colors will need to evolve beyond scolding and shaming.
The meaning of Maersk blue and Grundfos red can be altered through their appearance in contexts that scramble corporate messaging, encouraging alternative associations. The same approach can be taken with trademarked colors in the United States, such as UPS brown. In other words, the qualities that give trademark protection of color such power may be turned into vulnerabilities. The more arbitrary a meaning, the more opportunity for alternatives. At its best, art works in this alternative space.
