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Why Nobuo Sekine at this point in time? Why “Phase Conception”?
This is what Sekine himself has to say:
"Well, a Phase Conception results from the conversions and transformations I work in a single piece of paper by scratching, tearing, and pasting. Into this single skin--no decreasing or increasing of layers (we mustn't add to the world's trash)--I pour all my own inner desires, emotions, ideas, and love. The picture results from conversions in the single membrane, sealed with gold and black silver foil. It is my own kind of meditative picture in which accidental and deliberate forms naturally return to a relief-like surface. I hope such pictures serve as media of exchange with viewers." (Shuki [Notes], June 1989)
Of course, the Phase Conception is the final stage of the series of Phase works that started in 1967. His 1968 Phase-Mother Earth, a cylindrical excavation in the ground matched by a standing cylinder made of the earth dug from the hole, captivated many people with its overwhelming sense of presence and exerted a power of attraction on numerous artists, including Yufan Lee. Ultimately this work lead to the birth of a distinctive art movement called the Mono-ha or the School of Things.
After combining the roles of sculptor and environmental designer, Sekine founded the Environment Art Studio. Then he turned to pictures. Why?
Discovering the secret requires us to distance ourselves from the implications of the word phase, which pertains to phase-geometric spatial theories represented by the Klein bottle. As is revealed by his own shift from the word phase to the term phase of nothingness, the essential nature of Sekine’s works is not an extension of geometry but the embodiment of oriental philosophies of the kind represented by Zen Buddhism. He merely borrowed the geometric term phase for use in translating oriental thought into the Western art world.
Of Phase Conception, he has once written, “The world is a strange zone that neither increases nor decreases. Becoming more intensely aware of this reveals the futility of modern concepts of creation. All that human beings can do is behold phase changes. If this is so, why change phases. The reason is that human beings want to sense the strange zone that neither increases nor decreases. They wish to attain a realm approaching equivalence with what Zen Buddhists call Enlightenment (satori).” (Isokaiga ni tsuite [On Phase Conception]; 1987)
In Iso no Kishibe de (The shore of phases), he wrote, “In other words, we can create nothing. All we can do is to sweep away the dust from the surfaces of things to reveal them and the world included in them.”
The art of Phase is an art of reverence for the natural world, an artistic sublimation of oriental pantheism as represented by respect for the sun. Western philosophy, especially the Cartesian method, is founded on the idea that humanity controls all things. If art is the quintessence of culture, then modern Western art is at war with the God on whom Western philosophy is based. This accounts for the pressing limitations of Western philosophy. Blindness is the only outcome of trying to understand the oriental Mono-ha movement—of which Nobuo Sekine and Yufan Lee were pillars—in terms of modern art as an offshoot of Western philosophy.
After participating in the Venice Biennale of 1970, Sekine held exhibitions all over Europe. He returned to Japan in 1973. To the surprise of the Japanese art world, however, he suddenly founded the Environment Art Studio and demonstrated doubts about the ephemeral works on view in galleries and museums. From his standpoint, environmental art represented a natural development for the Mono-ha. At the time, he said, “Instead of being the avant-garde, I’d rather dig holes in the ground. Perhaps I put maximum confidence in making contact with my own sensitivities. Maybe that’s like being in the rear-garde….”
After promoting the kind of art he could believe in, in 1987, he gave it perfected form in Phase Conception, which he produced like a man possessed in the short period between 1987 and 1992. Shining beautifully in the cosmos, these pictures are true to his sensitivities. Ahead of his times, this genius has far surpassed the framework of contemporary Japanese art.
Several critics and commentators have discussed the need to break with established aesthetic preconceptions and include in art an appreciation of the natural world, as Sekine does. For instance, in an article for the catalogue of the exhibition “Environmental Art…a Nobuo Sekine Exhibit,” sponsored by the Kawagoe Municipal Museum of Art, then curator of the Kumamoto Municipal Museum of Modern Art Yukito Tanaka wrote, “If I may speak as a person who has worked with and thought about Japanese art, Nobuo Sekine’s great and shocking work Phase-Mother Earth (1968) went to the heart of serious issues involving the naturalness and directness of cognizant perception. But the natural development of the work never had concrete effects on daily life within the social environment of the times. Instead, it was veiled and put away on a shelf….That is why Nobuo Sekine can be called a wild man who entered the Japanese art world 30 years too soon.”
These comments, written while Mr. Tanaka was ill in bed, express great remorse, with which I and many other people of the arts sympathize. At long last, in recent times, modern art is beginning to understand what Nobuo Sekine tries to express in Phase Art. Significantly, many younger artists are beginning to respond candidly to art as the pain of essential human nature.
Art in a New World (Asahi Press, 2002), a book by the critic and scholar Midori Matsui, explains trends in modern art between 1980 and 2000. In chapter four (“Rediscovery of Beauty and Day-to-dayness”), she deals with the restoration of Art and sensitivity as a result of the 1995 Whitney Biennale. She describes 1997 as “the crossroads of modern art” and writes, “Modern art since 1997 has pointed out the limitations of clinging to the old concept of the avant-garde.” Ken-ichi Sasaki reports in his book entitled Bigaku e no Shotai (Invitation to aesthetics; Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2004) on the 15th International Art Conference, held in Tokyo in 2001. He introduces lively discussions on 21st century art as transcending humanity and, in chapter nine (“Aesthetics of the Near Future”), writes as follows:
"Human power cannot extend to beauty. Coming into contact with the beauty of the great world of nature makes us joyfully aware of our dwarfishness. Everyone who comes in contact with the boundless expanse of the sea or the towering loftiness of mountains experiences this. Aesthetics must relate the nature of beauty and of experiencing it." (p. 223)
Nobuo Sekine has accumulated within himself all the things that the Mono-ha artists wanted to say 30 years ago. He has ignored contemporary fads and has industriously created “modern historic sites” in parks all over Japan. Now intending to continue his work in South Korea and China as well, he will hold a one-man exhibition in Seoul in October 2005. None of this would have been possible without the warm friendship of three people: Nobuo Sekine, a Japanese who loves the Koreans; Yufan Lee, a Korean who loves Japan; and Yoshifumi Hayashi, a man of Korean descent residing in Japan. In the Japan-Korea Friendship Year 2005, what will a one-man show by Nobuo Sekine tell the people of Korea?
Now, indeed, is Nobuo Sekine’s day, because the contemporary art world is at last catching up with the ideas of a genius who appeared on the scene too soon.

(Chief Curator, Gallery BS Inc.)
[This article appeared in the July 2004 issue of Bijutsu no Mado (The art window).]



A Wild One Ahead of His Times Toshitaka Mizuma Why Nobuo Sekine at this point in time? Why “Phase Conception”? This is what Sekine himself has to say: "Well, a Phase Conception results from the conversions and transformations I work in a single piece of paper by scratching, tearing, and pasting. Into this single skin--no decreasing or increasing of layers (we mustn't add to the world's trash)--I pour all my own inner desires, emotions, ideas, and love. The picture results from conversions in the single membrane, sealed with gold and black silver foil. It is my own kind of meditative picture in which accidental and deliberate forms naturally return to a relief-like surface. I hope such pictures serve as media of exchange with viewers." (Shuki [Notes], June 1989) Of course, the Phase Conception is the final stage of the series of Phase works that started in 1967. His 1968 Phase-Mother Earth, a cylindrical excavation in the ground matched by a standing cylinder made of the earth dug from the hole, captivated many people with its overwhelming sense of presence and exerted a power of attraction on numerous artists, including Yufan Lee. Ultimately this work lead to the birth of a distinctive art movement called the Mono-ha or the School of Things. After combining the roles of sculptor and environmental designer, Sekine founded the Environment Art Studio. Then he turned to pictures. Why? Discovering the secret requires us to distance ourselves from the implications of the word phase, which pertains to phase-geometric spatial theories represented by the Klein bottle. As is revealed by his own shift from the word phase to the term phase of nothingness, the essential nature of Sekine’s works is not an extension of geometry but the embodiment of oriental philosophies of the kind represented by Zen Buddhism. He merely borrowed the geometric term phase for use in translating oriental thought into the Western art world. Of Phase Conception, he has once written, “The world is a strange zone that neither increases nor decreases. Becoming more intensely aware of this reveals the futility of modern concepts of creation. All that human beings can do is behold phase changes. If this is so, why change phases. The reason is that human beings want to sense the strange zone that neither increases nor decreases. They wish to attain a realm approaching equivalence with what Zen Buddhists call Enlightenment (satori).” (Isokaiga ni tsuite [On Phase Conception]; 1987) In Iso no Kishibe de (The shore of phases), he wrote, “In other words, we can create nothing. All we can do is to sweep away the dust from the surfaces of things to reveal them and the world included in them.” The art of Phase is an art of reverence for the natural world, an artistic sublimation of oriental pantheism as represented by respect for the sun. Western philosophy, especially the Cartesian method, is founded on the idea that humanity controls all things. If art is the quintessence of culture, then modern Western art is at war with the God on whom Western philosophy is based. This accounts for the pressing limitations of Western philosophy. Blindness is the only outcome of trying to understand the oriental Mono-ha movement—of which Nobuo Sekine and Yufan Lee were pillars—in terms of modern art as an offshoot of Western philosophy. After participating in the Venice Biennale of 1970, Sekine held exhibitions all over Europe. He returned to Japan in 1973. To the surprise of the Japanese art world, however, he suddenly founded the Environment Art Studio and demonstrated doubts about the ephemeral works on view in galleries and museums. From his standpoint, environmental art represented a natural development for the Mono-ha. At the time, he said, “Instead of being the avant-garde, I’d rather dig holes in the ground. Perhaps I put maximum confidence in making contact with my own sensitivities. Maybe that’s like being in the rear-garde….” After promoting the kind of art he could believe in, in 1987, he gave it perfected form in Phase Conception, which he produced like a man possessed in the short period between 1987 and 1992. Shining beautifully in the cosmos, these pictures are true to his sensitivities. Ahead of his times, this genius has far surpassed the framework of contemporary Japanese art. Several critics and commentators have discussed the need to break with established aesthetic preconceptions and include in art an appreciation of the natural world, as Sekine does. For instance, in an article for the catalogue of the exhibition “Environmental Art…a Nobuo Sekine Exhibit,” sponsored by the Kawagoe Municipal Museum of Art, then curator of the Kumamoto Municipal Museum of Modern Art Yukito Tanaka wrote, “If I may speak as a person who has worked with and thought about Japanese art, Nobuo Sekine’s great and shocking work Phase-Mother Earth (1968) went to the heart of serious issues involving the naturalness and directness of cognizant perception. But the natural development of the work never had concrete effects on daily life within the social environment of the times. Instead, it was veiled and put away on a shelf….That is why Nobuo Sekine can be called a wild man who entered the Japanese art world 30 years too soon.” These comments, written while Mr. Tanaka was ill in bed, express great remorse, with which I and many other people of the arts sympathize. At long last, in recent times, modern art is beginning to understand what Nobuo Sekine tries to express in Phase Art. Significantly, many younger artists are beginning to respond candidly to art as the pain of essential human nature. Art in a New World (Asahi Press, 2002), a book by the critic and scholar Midori Matsui, explains trends in modern art between 1980 and 2000. In chapter four (“Rediscovery of Beauty and Day-to-dayness”), she deals with the restoration of Art and sensitivity as a result of the 1995 Whitney Biennale. She describes 1997 as “the crossroads of modern art” and writes, “Modern art since 1997 has pointed out the limitations of clinging to the old concept of the avant-garde.” Ken-ichi Sasaki reports in his book entitled Bigaku e no Shotai (Invitation to aesthetics; Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2004) on the 15th International Art Conference, held in Tokyo in 2001. He introduces lively discussions on 21st century art as transcending humanity and, in chapter nine (“Aesthetics of the Near Future”), writes as follows: "Human power cannot extend to beauty. Coming into contact with the beauty of the great world of nature makes us joyfully aware of our dwarfishness. Everyone who comes in contact with the boundless expanse of the sea or the towering loftiness of mountains experiences this. Aesthetics must relate the nature of beauty and of experiencing it." (p. 223) Nobuo Sekine has accumulated within himself all the things that the Mono-ha artists wanted to say 30 years ago. He has ignored contemporary fads and has industriously created “modern historic sites” in parks all over Japan. Now intending to continue his work in South Korea and China as well, he will hold a one-man exhibition in Seoul in October 2005. None of this would have been possible without the warm friendship of three people: Nobuo Sekine, a Japanese who loves the Koreans; Yufan Lee, a Korean who loves Japan; and Yoshifumi Hayashi, a man of Korean descent residing in Japan. In the Japan-Korea Friendship Year 2005, what will a one-man show by Nobuo Sekine tell the people of Korea? Now, indeed, is Nobuo Sekine’s day, because the contemporary art world is at last catching up with the ideas of a genius who appeared on the scene too soon. (Chief Curator, Gallery BS Inc.) [This article appeared in the July 2004 issue of Bijutsu no Mado (The art window).]