was a Japanese sculptor who resided in both
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, Japan, and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, California.
A graduate of Tama Art University, he was one of the key members of
Mono-ha, a group of artists who became prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Mono-ha artists explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, arranging them or interacting with them in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states.
Sekine’s signature materials included earth, water, stone, oilclay, sponge, steel plates, among others. His ''Phase—Mother Earth'', consisting of a hole dug into the ground, 2.7 meters deep and 2.2 meters in diameter, with the excavated earth compacted into a cylinder of exactly the same dimensions, is considered to have initiated the
Mono-ha movement. Later credited as the "big bang"
[Groom, Simon. "Encountering Mono-ha", ''Mono-ha: School of Things''. Kettle’s Yard, 2001, p.8] of the movement, the work not only attracted the attention of fellow Tama students but also
Lee Ufan
Lee Ufan (Korean: 이우환, Hanja: 李禹煥, born 1936 in Haman County, in South Kyongsang province in Korea) is a Korean minimalist painter and sculptor artist and academic, honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to the ...
, who was senior to Sekine and in search of a theoretical framework for new art. This work led to an intense intellectual exchange between Sekine and Lee, involving other Tama students, that served as a foundational theory of
Mono-ha, that combined Sekine’s principle of “not making” (''tsukuranai koto'') and Lee’s idea of “the world as-it-is” (''arugamama no sekai''), setting a stage for themselves and their peers to embark on a full-fledged exploration of ''mono'' (things), which became the name for their movement. Sekine’s own work rapidly progressed from ''Phase—Mother Earth to Phase-Sponge'' (1968) and ''Phase of Nothingness - Oil Clay'' (1969), with all of these works receiving top awards at major competitions. By 1970, Sekine established himself as a young but rising figure of contemporary art, being invited, along with
Shusaku Arakawa
was a Japanese conceptual artist and architect. He had a personal and artistic partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades in which they collaborated on a diverse range of visual mediums, including: ...
, to exhibit in the Japanese pavilion at the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1970, by the critic Yoshiaki Tōno. While
Arakawa filled the pavilion’s interior, Sekine erected a large-scale outdoor sculpture, ''Phase of Nothingness''. Despite these attentions, the artist departed the
Mono-ha practice and established ''Kankyō Bijutsu Kenkyūjo'' (Environment Art Studio) in 1973 to focus primarily on public sculpture.
Early career
Nobuo Sekine was born in 1942 in Shiki City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. From 1962 to 1968, he was a student in the painting department at
Tama Art University
or is a private art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan.
History
The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) founded in 1935. ...
in Tokyo, where he studied under influential artist-teachers
Yoshishige Saitō and
Jiro Takamatsu was one of the most important postwar Japanese artists. Takamatsu used photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, and performance to fundamentally investigate the philosophical and material conditions of art. Takamatsu's practice was dedicated to t ...
.
Takamatsu’s illusionistic paintings and sculpture were central to the development of the Tokyo art scene at that time, as well as his performances and actions that belong to the anti-art trend (Yamanote Line Incident, and other events of the group Hi-Red Center, which he co-founded).
Sekine’s early work reflected this approach. He was included in the seminal ''Tricks and Vision: Stolen Eyes'' group exhibition held at Tokyo Gallery and Muramatsu Gallery in 1968. There, he exhibited ''Phase No.4'' (1968) (位相 No.4), a wall-mounted sculpture. Depending on the angle from which one viewed this work, its cylindrical shape appeared whole or fragmented. Sekine held his first solo exhibition at Tokyo Gallery the following year.
Phase—Mother Earth
The major turning point in Sekine’s career came in October 1968, when he created the work ''Phase: Mother Earth'' in
Kobe
Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...
’s Suma Rikyu Park for the ''First Open Air Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition'' (第一回野外彫刻展). Made with the assistance of
Susumu Koshimizu and Katsuro Yoshida, the work consisted of a hole dug into the ground, 2.7 meters deep and 2.2 meters in diameter, with the excavated earth compacted into a cylinder of exactly the same dimensions.
He conceived the work as a “thought experiment” that would deal with the laws of awareness of phases of space—a form of “reasoned thought that deduces whether or not one’s hypotheses are true, and in some cases, can ignore the physical phenomena of reality.” He further elaborated : "If you dig a hole in the earth and keep digging forever, eventually the earth will be like an eggshell, and if you go on to pull out all the earth, it will be reversed into a negative version of itself. "
Despite the simple structure, the act of trying to compact the earth into the desired shape proved technically challenging. Eventually, Sekine consulted a geology laboratory at the University of Tokyo, which advised him to alternate layers of earth with cement, before treading them down firmly.
At the time, Sekine knew virtually nothing about Land Art. Creating a work outdoors was not even his own idea; he merely happened to be invited to participate in an outdoor sculpture exhibition. When Sekine finished the work, however, something unexpected happened: he was simply stunned by the sheer power of the ‘thing’ (mono) before him. The reality of it overwhelmed whatever concepts he originally had in mind. Sekine recently likened it to an ‘accident’ that hit him (and the two other Mono-ha artists who assisted him, Yoshida and Koshimizu Susumu) over the course of a week, though at the time he was unable to put into words the impact he felt. Sekine knew he now faced a different issue, yet his interest continued to centre on topological space.
Lee Ufan shed a light on the ‘accident’ that struck Sekine, Koshimizu and Yoshida :''Phase-Mother Earth'' is considered to be the initial work of the
Mono-ha movement.
It was later credited as the "big bang" of the movement.
[“Shogen: Mono-ha ga kataru Mono-ha/Testimony: Mono-ha as Explained by the Mono-ha,” special feature, Bijutsu techno, no. 706 (May 1995): 269.]
The work was re-created in 1970 for the Osaka World Expo, in 2008 and again in 2012 for the exhibition ''Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha,'' Blum and Poe, Los Angeles.
Other Important Works
''Phase—Sponge'' (1968) (位相:スポンジ) was a white cylinder of sponge, distorted under the weight of a black sheet of iron laid on top of it. One can understand from this work that structure remains the same even if there are changes in form, and that what is deformed can be restored to its original shape. Writing about this work,
Lee Ufan
Lee Ufan (Korean: 이우환, Hanja: 李禹煥, born 1936 in Haman County, in South Kyongsang province in Korea) is a Korean minimalist painter and sculptor artist and academic, honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to the ...
suggested that “perhaps all primitive people had to do was to stack up rocks like dolmens. However, in today’s industrial society, an iron plate on a sponge cylinder more naturally elicits a response”.
![Phase-sponge-1968](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Phase-sponge-1968.jpg)
At Sekine’s first solo exhibition at Tokyo Gallery in 1969, he exhibited ''Phase'' ''of Nothingness—Oil Clay'' (1969) (空相—油土), which consisted of a huge mass of oil clay exhibited in its natural state. Viewers were allowed to touch this work and reshape it, implying that sculpted or not, and in contrast to its dominant physical presence, this “sculpture” was transient. Of this piece, curator
Simon Groom
Simon Groom (born 12 August 1950) is a British producer and director. He was a presenter of ''Blue Peter'' from 1978 to 1986.
Early life
Groom was born in Chesterfield in Derbyshire, and was brought up on a farm in Dethick, which he often vis ...
wrote:
''Phase of Nothingness—Water'' (1969) (空相:水) consisted of two containers of water, one a 110 cm high cylinder and the other a 30 cm high rectangular box. The containers were painted black so that the water would appear invisible, but as viewers were allowed to touch the work, once they did so, ripples made the presence of the water known.
Phase Of Nothingness / Venice Biennale
In July 1970, along with
Shusaku Arakawa
was a Japanese conceptual artist and architect. He had a personal and artistic partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades in which they collaborated on a diverse range of visual mediums, including: ...
, Sekine was chosen to exhibit at the Japan Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
. He contributed ''Phase of Nothingness'' (空相), which consisted of a large stone placed on top of a tall square column of mirrored stainless steel. The column reflects the surrounding scenery and almost disappears from view, while the stone appears to float in the air. Yoshiaki Tono, commissioner of the Japan Pavilion wrote :
Yoshiaki Tono referred to a roundtable discussion held on the occasion of the Ninth Contemporary Art Exhibit, known as Mainichi-ten that commenced in May 1969 where Sekine mentioned a changing face of art production and renounced the position of the modern subject that has been passed down since the Renaissance period.
Following his experience in Venice, Sekine established the Environmental Art Studio in 1973 to work on public sculpture.
His success at the Venice Biennale led to him being offered a number of solo shows in Europe, including a traveling exhibition featuring a major body of sculptural work, ''Phase of Nothingness—Black'' (1978–79)(空相—黒).
Phase Of Nothingness—Black
''Phase of Nothingness—Black'' (1978–79) (空相—黒) is a lesser-known but equally important series, consisting of black
FRP sculptures that contrast the natural and the manmade. The approximately 50 sculptures range from rough, clod-like forms that lie low on the floor to highly polished, geometric shapes that stand tall like totems. These works marked a crucial shift in Sekine’s practice—away from a focus on raw materials and malleability and toward the surface qualities of solidified forms. Sekine deliberately made it difficult to identify the material used to create these works—at first glance it is not evident whether they are made of stone, glass, metal, or plastic. When Sekine installed these works, he considered their placement to be a “topological scene” governed by aesthetic principles similar to those found in
Zen
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
rock gardens—namely, asymmetric arrangements of disparate elements that combine to represent a broader landscape of seas, islands, and mountains.
Intellectual Exchange With Lee Ufan
In November 1968, Sekine met the Korean-born artist
Lee Ufan
Lee Ufan (Korean: 이우환, Hanja: 李禹煥, born 1936 in Haman County, in South Kyongsang province in Korea) is a Korean minimalist painter and sculptor artist and academic, honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to the ...
, who was soon to be of central importance to
Mono-ha and the articulation of its ideas. Lee had studied a variety of philosophies, including the writings of
Lao Tzu
Laozi (), also known by numerous other names, was a semilegendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. Laozi ( zh, ) is a Chinese honorific, generally translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as in the state of ...
and
Chuang Tzu (which also came to influence Sekine’s work), and after moving to Japan in 1956, had studied modern Western philosophy at
Nihon University
, abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice (Japan), Minister of Justice, in 1889. ...
. Lee recognized the progressiveness of Sekine’s ideas and admired his work, while Sekine found in Lee a theoretician to support his artistic practice and views of art. He knew, from his study of the postwar avant-garde, that a new art like his needed an equally new language in order for him to make a lasting mark in history. Thus, to Sekine, Lee was an answer to his search.
In a series of commentaries that appeared in various art magazines from 1969 to 1970, Lee claimed to have identified the emergence of “a new structure” revealing “the world as it is.” Lee’s theory privileged “things or substances” arranged in a “site” which together produce an “encounter with being,” vividly real and free of subject/object bifurcation. “Sekine’s act, then, does not mean to turn the world into an object of cognition as with the case of objet,” Lee wrote, “but to liberate it amidst non-objective phenomena, into the realm of perception; that is, to let the world be in its own being.”
Lee expands on this porous reciprocity to theorize relationality without a prescribed end, a notion he further refines in his reading of Sekine’s ''Isō-Daichi'' (''Phase—Earth'', 1968) by humorously meditating on a trans-agential entanglement :
Exhibitions
Sekine’s first solo exhibition was at Tokyo Gallery in 1969. Since then, he has had numerous solo shows in Japan, including at the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1970. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held in Copenhagen,
a Bertesca GalleryGenova,
a Bertesca GalleryMilan, Tokyo, and Nagoya.
From 1978 to 1979, “Phase of Nothingness—Black” was the subject of a solo exhibition which toured from the
Künsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany, to the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
, Humlebæk, Denmark; the
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of her ...
, Otterlo, Netherlands; and the
Henie-Onstad Art Centre
The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter is an art museum located at Høvikodden in Bærum municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is situated on a headland jutting into the Oslofjord, approximately southwest of Oslo.
History
The artcentre was founded ...
, Høvikodden, Norway.
Sekine has also been included in landmark surveys, such as ''Reconsidering Mono-ha'', National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2005; ''Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky, '' held at Yokohama Museum of Art,
Guggenheim Museum SoHo
The Guggenheim Museum SoHo was a branch of the Guggenheim Museum designed by Arata Isozaki that was located at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City. The museum opened in 1992 and closed in 2001 after hosting ex ...
, New York, and
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
, 1994; and ''Japon des Avant Garde''s 1910–1970,
Centre Georges Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, Paris, 1986.
Sekine’s work has received renewed attention in the United States following his inclusion in ''Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha'', at
Blum & Poe
Blum & Poe is a contemporary art gallery located in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo.
Development
Blum & Poe was founded by Tim Blum and Jeff Poe in Santa Monica, California, in September 1994.
The inaugural exhibition in Santa Monica featured ...
, Los Angeles, in February 2012. This exhibition was the first survey of Mono-ha in the United States. Sekine’s work was also featured in ''Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant Garde'' at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2012. Also, his first solo show in the United States was held at Blum & Poe in January 2014.
Sekine was represented by the galleries
Blum & Poe
Blum & Poe is a contemporary art gallery located in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo.
Development
Blum & Poe was founded by Tim Blum and Jeff Poe in Santa Monica, California, in September 1994.
The inaugural exhibition in Santa Monica featured ...
(Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo) and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP (Tokyo, Beijing).
Death
Sekine died on May 13, 2020 in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
at the age of 76.
Collections
Nobuo Sekine’s work is in the collection of numerous museums, including:
*
Hakone Open-Air Museum
The Hakone Open-Air Museum (箱根 彫刻の森美術館, Hakone Choukoku no Mori Bijutsukan) is Japan's first pen-air museum opened in 1969 in Hakone in Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It has collections of artworks made b ...
, Hakone
*
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
The was one of the oldest contemporary art museums in Japan. The museum was in the Kita-Shinagawa district, in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo.
The building was originally built as a private mansion designed by Jin Watanabe in 1938 for the grandfa ...
, Tokyo
*
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
The is an art museum founded in 1989. It is in Hijiyama Park in Hiroshima, Japan. The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa.
Representative collections
Access
*Hiroden Hijiyama-shita Station
See also
*Hiroshima Museum of Art
* ...
, Hiroshima
*
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
, Denmark
*
National Museum of Art, Osaka
is a subterranean Japanese art museum located on the island of Nakanoshima, located between the Dōjima River and the Tosabori River, about 10 minutes west of Higobashi Station in central Osaka.
The official Japanese title of the museum tran ...
*
Henie-Onstad Art Centre
The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter is an art museum located at Høvikodden in Bærum municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is situated on a headland jutting into the Oslofjord, approximately southwest of Oslo.
History
The artcentre was founded ...
, Norway
*
Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa
*
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota
Awards
1969
Concour Prize, 1st International Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Hakone, Japan
Prize
Group Work, 6th Paris Biennale, Paris, France
1968
Concour Prize, 8th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo
Asahi Newspaper Prize, Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Suma Rikyu Park, Kobe
First Prize, 5th Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagaoka
1967
Commendatory Prize, 11th Shell Art Exhibition, Tokyo
Bibliography
*Chong, Doryun. ''Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant-Garde''. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012.
*Koplos, Janet. ''Contemporary Japanese Sculpture''. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.
*''Japon des avant gardes: 1910–1970''. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1986.
*''Monogatari: Nobuo Sekine Arts Exhibition 1970-2011''. Shanghai:Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2011.
*''What is Mono-ha?'' Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery + BTAP,2007
*Yoshitake, Mika. ''Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha''. Los Angeles: Blum & Poe, 2012.
Autobiography
Sekine, Nobuo. ''Fukei no yubiwa.'' Tokyo: Tosho Shinbun, 2006.
References
External links
Artist websiteBlum & PoeNobuo Sekine biographyKamakura Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sekine, Nobuo
1942 births
2020 deaths
Modern sculptors
Japanese sculptors
Tama Art University alumni
Land artists
Japanese contemporary artists
People from Saitama (city)