Matthew Byrne | Writer, Founder, Digital Marketer

How It Came Together

In early 2019, Spittoon was approached by Madness Shanghai, a Chinese production company with links to Art Battle International — a global live painting competition running in over sixty cities worldwide. The pitch was straightforward: Art Battle needed a partner in Beijing with the infrastructure, community reach, and event experience to realise the event at scale. Spittoon had all three. The collaboration was a recognition of what the collective had built in Beijing over four years — the volunteer network, the venue relationships, the audience.

The result was Art Battle Beijing, held on Sunday 24th February 2019 at Yue Space. Twelve Beijing-based artists. Three rounds of twenty minutes of live painting each. An audience vote via WeChat to decide the winner of each round. All sixteen paintings auctioned at the end of the night.

The Event

More than 200 people showed up. The format was simple and immediately compelling — artists painting in the round, audience circling them, watching the work emerge in real time under pressure and a clock. The energy in the room built through each round as the field narrowed and the stakes rose.

Crowd watches the painters

Between rounds and across the evening, Spittoon’s own Spittunes project provided the music — the partnership of Bond and Byrne with Spanish poet Jaime Santirso performing spontaneous prose, followed by a headline set from Paths. The combination of live painting and live music gave the night a momentum that a conventional gallery event never would have

The Paintings

At the end of three rounds, all sixteen works produced during the competition were auctioned as memorabilia — a small slice of Beijing art history, as one observer put it. The works ranged widely in style and subject, reflecting the diversity of Beijing’s international creative community that Spittoon had spent four years building a home for.

What It Represented

Art Battle Beijing was one of the clearest demonstrations of what Spittoon had become by 2019. The approach from Madness Shanghai wasn’t accidental — it came because Spittoon had the reputation, the reach, and the operational capability to deliver something at this scale. A poetry night that started at Mado Bar in 2015 had grown into an organisation that could co-produce a 200-person ticketed event featuring international artists and live music, and pull it off.

Art Battle Beijing took place on 24th February 2019 at Yue Space, Beijing. Co-organised by Spittoon Arts Collective and Madness Shanghai.