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, <i>Legacy  Mantle</i> 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.