Songs and Cries + The Banquet
by Li Yongzheng
in collaboration with Zhong Art International & MAD Murate Art District
On Friday, October 16, at 7:30 PM, MAD Murate Art District will host a screening of two video works, Songs and Cries and The Banquet, by Li Yongzheng, in collaboration with Zhong Art International (ZAI). The event will feature Valentina Gensini, Director of MAD Murate Art District; Xiuzhong Zhang, President of the FanHua Film Festival and Founder of Zhong Art International; and Paolo Bertolin, Artistic Director of the FanHua Film Festival and film selector for the Venice International Film Festival.
Songs and Cries
Director: Li Yongzheng
Country: China
Year: 2023–2024
Running time: Approximately 50 minutes
Production: Li Yongzheng Studio
Created between 2023 and 2024, Songs and Cries is a complete video work comprising six formally autonomous short films. The work explores individual experiences, emotional trauma, and transformations in social psychology resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
Through the body, landscape, ritual, allegory, and fragmented storytelling, it addresses themes such as faith, sacrifice, maternal love, desire, violence, and the shifting boundaries between reality and belief.
The six parts, independent yet interconnected, form a cohesive work exploring memory, the human condition, and spiritual experience.
The Banquet
Director: Li Yongzheng
Country: China
Year: 2020
Running time: 12 minutes and 30 seconds
Production: Li Yongzheng Studio
Created in 2020, The Banquet takes place during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. The artist travelled from southern China to a remote canyon in Xinjiang, where, in a completely uninhabited landscape, he invited several local Uyghur residents to share a meal. Through this seemingly peaceful encounter and the temporary sense of closeness among the participants, the work reveals the complex relationships between isolation, boundaries, trust, and a reality marked by uncertainty.
Artist Biography
Li Yongzheng was born in 1971 and lives and works in Chengdu, China. His practice encompasses video, installation, performance, and painting. His research focuses on individual memory, migration and borders, faith and absence, as well as the psychological mechanisms and social forces hidden beneath the surface of reality. In 2025, he presented his solo exhibition Deep in the Desert at MART – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy. In 2022, he held his solo exhibition Yes, Today at the Osthaus Museum in Hagen, Germany. In 2025, he received the Grand Prize at the 3rd Golden Panda Photography Art Award in China, and in 2021, an award at the 21st Asia Digital Art Award in Fukuoka, Japan.
For more information: info@zhongart.it
