Sui Jianguo’s Mars in a Mao Suit and Marx in a Mao Suit stand at a critical intersection of China’s revolutionary past and its rapidly transforming present. Cast in bronze, the sculptures evoke both classical permanence and political mythology. The familiar silhouette of the Mao suit—once a symbol of conformity and collective identity—is here monumentalized and reimagined. Stiff, armored, and iconic, the work confronts the weight of history and the ways symbols outlast the ideologies they once served.

Created in 1997 and 1998 during a time of cultural and economic opening in China, these pieces reflects the country’s emerging generation of artists who began to openly examine the legacies of Mao-era ideology. Jianguo does not offer judgment, but rather poses a question: what happens when the symbols of power become relics? Through the patina’s quiet corrosion, Mars in a Mao Suit suggests that time, like nature, inevitably reclaims even the most rigid of monuments. In contrast, Marx in a Mao Suit’s white glaze is both clinical and impersonal, draining the figure of heat and inviting viewers to confront it not as a person, but as a relic.

There is a spiritual undercurrent to the work—a meditation on transformation, endurance, and the dual nature of memory as both burden and guide. In the Bardo between ideology and collapse, his sculpture invites reflection on what we inherit, what decays, and how collective memory inhabits material form.

Sui Jianguo is a pivotal figure in Chinese contemporary art, known for using industrial materials and conceptual sculpture to explore identity, authority, and the shifting narratives of modern China. His work is held in major collections worldwide, such as the Public Art Fund, M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Pace gallery, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York).

Acquired directly from the artist