Art movement Toyists goes to work in China. The group of masked artists, founded in Drenthe, will provide a work of art on a wall in a fifty-year-old former industrial military complex in the city.
The grounds of Art District 798 in Beijing are full of brick buildings. Behind the great walls used to be industrial parts of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Today it is a breeding ground for artists with museums, galleries, studios, bars and restaurants, but from the outside it still looks like a dated industrial complex. But that will partly change.
“We are going to transform a large wall with an area of 135 square meters into our style,” says artist Dejo, one of the founders of the movement. Toyists from different countries work together for this. “Eleven artists from the Netherlands, Germany, Iceland, Romania, China, Malaysia, Peru and Morocco have made sketches. We have made a total design. The title is The Taste of World Cultures. The design will be printed by a company in Beijing and will be pasted on the wall next week. It is actually a kind of wallpaper, but when you stand close to it it looks like it has been painted. And over time it will disappear by itself due to weather influences.”
These world cultures are expressed in different ways. Food, music, opera, ballet and fairy tales come from China, Morocco, Peru, Iceland. But the Amsterdam houses have also been given a place on it.
The Toyists owe this special assignment to a prize that the art movement won in 2018. During the Beautiful Beijing Design Week competition, the masked artists created the wall design What’s For Dinner. Since that time there has been regular contact with representatives of the art district. Last spring the plans for working on the wall became final.
What exactly the artwork will look like will become clear next week. It must first pass a Chinese censorship committee, which must check whether the work of art meets the standards and values of the Chinese government. Dejo isn’t worried about it. He thinks it makes sense to look into it. “I’m not so afraid of it. This also happens in other countries, where governments also have the last word. I’ve been used to that for thirty years.”