Nobuo Sekine, who resumed production last year on his "Phase Conceptions" after a 15-year hiatus, has added rich variation to the collection and will be holding an exhibit of his new works. In "Phase Conceptions," Sekine takes a stack of five sheets of torinoko paper (thick handmade paper often used for Japanese sliding doors), adds water to make it pliant, and then processes it in a variety of ways. Then after it dries, he covers the surface with a coat of gold leaf or other material. An environmental artist and sculptor who had previously been building parks and monuments, Sekine churned out this legendary collection of works one after another, almost as if he were possessed, in the few short years beginning in 1987. Now, 15 years later, these works will make a vivid, colorful appearance in the gallery.

The name "phase" originates in the spatial theory of topology, as represented by the Moebius strip. Both round spheres and concave cups, if their surfaces are continuous and their shapes can be changed freely, will not change their true substance in topological terms even if you change their shape. This is known as a transformation, or phase change.
Sekine says, "We cannot 'create' things. All we can do is brush off the dust that collects on the surface of something and reveal that thing and the world in which it is contained." He says that even when an artist says he "creates" something, in the final analysis, whatever he creates is trivial when compared to the creation of the universe. And if we search there for the raison d'être of the artist, we find it to be how brilliantly he or she can present the whereabouts of the universe itself - that is to say, to "brush off the dust."
In 1968, Sekine took this concept of "phases" and laid it open for public debate with a work that will go down in art history, "Phase-Mother Earth." This enormous monument made of soil turned the Japanese art world on its head, and it led in turn to the "Nothingness" monument at the Venice Biennale, which featured a huge stone floating in the air. Nevertheless, although the works succeeded overseas and returned home triumphantly after appearing by invitation in exhibitions all over Europe, Sekine abruptly took up a new course in 1973, converting from a contemporary artist to an "environmental artist." Harboring reservations about the course of the avant-garde art seen in existential installations, Sekine simply stated that if people referred to his own art as arriere-guard, so be it, and he forged vigorously ahead with environmental art.
Having become an environmental designer, Sekine went on to serve as managing director of Environment Art Studio, Inc., confronting the environment itself while binding together architects, planners, landscapers, and the like. Saying that he wanted "to drive stakes firmly into the ground," he completed more than 400 works, which rightly commanded a conspicuous presence as "modern-day relics."

Nobuo Sekine is a man with an extremely well-honed sensibility. He is true to his own heart. His "Phase-Mother Earth" came about through toying and tinkering with his concept, but in the face of the work that resulted, anything related to that concept vanished. The colossal mass of soil had swept with overwhelming force over all those who produced it, and they had uniformly received the baptism of the earth. That was the advent of the "Mono-ha" (School of Things) that would later become a topic of conversation. After that, Sekine drew in a multitude of controversialists and gave shape to the "Mono-ha," but those who had received the earth's baptism and those who had not would traverse clearly different paths from then on.
It is possible that Nobuo Sekine's fate as an environmental artist had already been determined at that point. Having had a lively discussion with Yoshishige Saito about the teachings of Lao-tzu, he began making frequent trips to the shrines and temples of Kyoto and Nara, constantly searching for what art should intrinsically look like and listening quietly to his own inner voice. Spiritual sustenance for people in Italy came from the sculptures in the plazas of their towns, and once he learned what that warm art was like, the knowledge rankled with him deep inside. That is how Sekine became an environmental artist and worked to help environmental art take root in Japan.

However, fundamentally speaking, Nobuo Sekine was a painter. With the ambition of painting pictures his entire life, he went to Tama Arts University Department of Painting, and while at the university, all he did was paint pictures. Yet fate played a curious prank on him. He entered a semi-three-dimensional work in the two-dimensional category at the 8th Mainichi Contemporary Art Exhibition, but the attendant mistakenly put his work into the sculpture category instead -- and it won. With that, everyone developed the impression that Sekine was a sculptor, and he was invited to submit a work to the 1st Kobe Suma Rikyu Park Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture. It was there that the now-famous "Phase - Mother Earth" made its appearance.
Thus painting pictures and making things with his hands is Nobuo Sekine's lifelong calling. Beholding an earth on the brink of danger, Sekine was filled with a sense of responsibility, which led to the development of the Environment Art Studio. However, Sekine's impulses as an artist extend beyond that. The truth is, he has a burning desire to make things. That is what makes him decidedly different from contemporary artists who spend all their time chasing after concepts. Hence "Phase Conceptions" was born out of necessity, and he spent several years creating the works at the pace of a man who was possessed. But in those days, he was snowed under with work in his capacity as head of the Environment Art Studio, and it was extremely difficult for him to immerse himself fully in being an artist.
For that reason alone, when the decision was made the year before last to scale down the Environment Art Studio, it may have in fact been Nobuo Sekine in his capacity as an artist who silently rejoiced. That is because he could finally fulfill his dream to focus on painting pictures.
New works spewed forth in a rush of welling impulses. The light that is projected in the works is indescribably comfortable, and the colors are too beautiful for words. There is something pre-existent in the paintings that transcends the concept of "phases."
Sekine says that when he first started making his "Phase Conceptions," he engaged in a variety of experiments. He tried using actual metal as a material, and he tried applying gold paint, but apparently these gave him considerable difficulty. That is how he came to pursue a "coat" or "film," something that he could work with freely and that would enable him to depict "phases" as well. At first, he used only gold foil, but then he branched out into black foil and lead foil. Both these materials serve as an extension of a metal surface, and an extension of a "coat."

But last year, 15 years after the initial works in "Phase Conceptions" were created, colored foil appeared resplendently on the scene. And something exploded in Sekine's art. In this solo exhibition, "mineral pigments" have been applied. Clearly there is "something" swirling around that goes beyond "the concept." The principle behind foil in the first place is reflection, not the expression of color. And that is why it fits with the concept of "Phase Conceptions." Yet the substance of mineral pigments is itself color, so its very raison d'être is different. In the case of foil, there is an inherent need for it to reflect something. Now Sekine has distinctly grasped what he should reflect and is trying to attain an art of bodily sensation that exists somewhere beyond his concept. The feeling of pleasure that Oriental man has experienced all along with his whole body; the supreme joy of becoming one with the macro cosmos; the beauty of the harmony between gold foil and mineral pigments, which history has ripened in the paintings found on folding screens. At last, these elements are beginning to be integrated with a sensibility that has been finely honed through 400 environmental art projects. Nowadays, in an age when the human race is seeking to return to its true character, could this be the Sekine art that the world has so anxiously awaited?