Sui Jianguo is one of China’s most pivotal contemporary sculptors—known for his rigorous engagement with political iconography and material form. Trained during the Cultural Revolution and deeply shaped by its aftermath, Sui has long interrogated the visual legacy of Maoist ideology. Legacy Mantle is among his most emblematic works: a rigid cast of the Mao jacket, hollowed yet commanding, it captures the weight of historical memory and the emptiness of inherited authority. The cast iron shell, absent of a body, functions as both relic and monument—simultaneously personal and collective.

Created in the mid-1990s, a crucial period in China’s transition toward global capitalism, the sculpture embodies the tensions between power and absence, presence and erasure. Though immobile, the piece carries the psychic residue of a system that once structured the national imagination. Its iron surface, heavy and industrial, contrasts with the soft form it replicates—underscoring the paradox of control and vulnerability embedded in its source.

In the context of Mother Nature in the Bardo, Legacy Mantle resonates with broader themes of cyclical transformation, collective memory, and ideological afterlife. Like Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Heads or Takis’ Signal, Sui’s sculpture questions the forces that shape identity, history, and myth. The jacket stands as a skin shed and preserved—trapped between past and present, power and decay.

Sui Jianguo’s work is included in major collections such as the Guggenheim Museum (New York), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), and the National Art Museum of China. His sculptural language continues to influence a generation reckoning with the sculptural and symbolic remnants of political regimes.

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist