Nobuo Sekine (1942, Saitama, Japan – 2019, Los Angeles, CA) is a Japanese sculptor and one of the founders of Mono-ha, an art movement that emerged in Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He graduated in Painting from Tama Art University in Tokyo and in 1968 began to work on the concept of ‘phase’ in topology, a branch of mathematics concerned with abstract space and connectivity, in particular properties that are preserved under continuous deformations. Thanks to this discipline, Sekine perceives form, matter and space as infinitely malleable; his first Phase series, made of curved plywood and luminous colors, demonstrates this concept.
At the end of ’68, Sekine exhibited Phase-Mother Earth at the first Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition at Suma Rikyū Park in Kobe. The work consists of a cylindrical hole in the ground, accompanied by an adjacent cylindrical earth tower modelled in the same dimensions. The artist-theorist Lee Ufan, inspired by the latter, develops new theories of studying and classifying phenomena (material/space and in relation to man) in the contemporary Japanese context. These theories concerned several artists who worked in an ephemeral and site-specific mode, such as Susumu Koshimizu and Kishio Suga who, together with Sekine and Lee, came to be known as Mono-ha, ‘The School of Things’.
In the 1970s, Sekine participated in the Venice Biennale with Phase of Nothingness, an enormous natural stone supported by a column of mirrored stainless steel, now part of the permanent collection of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.
In the following years he realized the sculptures Phase of Nothingness-Black (’77-’78), a series made of FRP (fibre reinforced polymer matrix) that confront the natural and the artificial, ranging from rough clod-like forms lying low on the floor to highly polished geometric forms standing tall like totems. The exhibition space becomes a scene governed by aesthetic principles like those found in Zen rock gardens.
In the 1990s and 2000s Sekine created public sculptures at various sites in Japan.
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Nobuo Sekine, Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA, 2014
Photo: Gaea Woods
GALLERY
Limiti di equilibrio
October - December 2022
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
1969
Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1970
Galleria La Bertesca, Genova, Italy
Genoa Gallery Modulo, Milan, Italy
1971
Gallery Krebs, Bern, Switzerland
Gallery Birch, Copenhagen, Denmark
1973
Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1975
Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
1976
Gallery Dori, Tokyo, Japan
1977
Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1978
Nobuo Sekine: Skulptor 1975-1978, Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany; traveled to Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebæk Denmark; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway
1980
Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1981
Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
1982
Sekine’s Prints and Sculptures: Cross Country 7500Km, Keneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1983
Sekine and Environment Art Studio, Stripe House Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1985
Akiyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1987
Ginza Jiyugaoka Gallery, Tokyo
Gallery Te, Tokyo, Japan
Kawagoe Gallery, Kawagoe, Japan
Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1988
Gallery M, Obama, Japan
Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan
Kozaido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Nishida Gallery, Nara, Japan
Soh Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Anshindo Gallery, Shizuoka, Japan
Gallery Kura, Kitakyushu, Japan
We Gallery, Omiya, Japan
1989
Kodosha, Ichinoseki, Japan
Gallery Lamia, Tokyo, Japan
Chikugo Gallery, Kurume, Japan
Mitsui Gallery, Matsudo, Japan
Gallery TAK, Yokohama, Japan
Susono Art House, Susono, Japan
Kozaido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Kobundo Gallery, Obihiro, Japan
Gojuichiban-kan Gallery, Aomori, Japan
Gallery Picasso, Maebashi, Japan
Katsuyama Isozaki Hall, Fukui, Japan
Stempfli Gallery, New York, NY
Umeda Modern Art Museum, Osaka, Japan
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COLLETTIVE EXHIBITIONS
1967
Two-Man Show, Tsubaki Kindai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
11th Shell Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan
OOOPLAN, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Universiad, Tokyo, Japan
Awards and Grants
Commendatory Prize, 11th Shell Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan
1968
OOXPLAN, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
8th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1st Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Suma Palace Park, Kobe, Japan
5th Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagoya, Japan
Concour Prize, 8th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
Asahi Newspaper Prize, Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Suma Palace Park, Kobe, Japan
First Prize, 5th Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagaoka, Japan
1969
6th Paris Biennale, Paris, France
9th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1st International Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Hakone Open-Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
9 Visual Points, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Tricks & Vision: Stolen Eyes, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Trend of Japanese Contemporary Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Japanese Artist Drawing, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Concour Prize, 1st International Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Hakone, Japan
Prize Group Work, 6th Paris Biennale, Paris, France
1970
Fine Arts Exhibition, Expo Museum of Fine Arts, Expo ’70, Osaka, Japan
35th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Human Documents ’70-3, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1971
10th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Gallery 1971, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1973
8th Japan Art-Festival, Tokyo, Japan
11th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1974
Two-Man Show with Kuniichi Sima, Gallery Coco, Kyoto, Japan
11th Tokyo Biennale, Tokyo, Japan
Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition of 20 Artists, Tokyo Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Art Exhibition, Germany
Contemporary Sculpture Symposium, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Japan
1975
Contemporary Art Exhibition from 1950 to 1975, Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1976
10th International Biennale Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
1977
Japan Art-Festival, Tokyo Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Voices in the Modern Age, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1980
History of Contemporary Sculpture, Kanagawa Prefectural Hall Gallery, Kanagawa, Japan
1981
The 1960’s: A Decade of Change in Contemporary Japanese Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan; traveled to the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Modern Japanese Sculpture, Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa, Japan
Japanese Contemporary Art, The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, Seoul, Korea
The 1960’s: A Decade of Change in Contemporary Japanese Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
1983
Figure of Wood and Esprit, Saitama Prefectural Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1984
Human Documents ’84/’85-3, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Art of Present Time. Wood and Paper-Dialogue with Nature, Gifu Prefectural Museum, Gifu, Japan
Development of Contemporary Sculpture, Gallery Seiho, Tokyo, Japan
Sculpture Japonaise Contemporaine, Galerie Jullien-Cornic, Paris, France
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