Background
Nobuo Sekine was born on September 19, 1942 in Saitama, Japan.
Nobuo Sekine was born on September 19, 1942 in Saitama, Japan.
From 1962 to 1968, Nobuo was a student in the painting department at Tama Art University in Tokyo, where he studied under influential artist-teachers Yoshishige Saito and Jiro Takamatsu, and received Master of Fine Arts.
From 1968 into the 1970s, Sekine worked internationally as a central figure of “Mono-ha”, which is translated literally as “School of Things”, a movement considered instrumental in the formation of postwar Japanese art. In 1970, Sekine represented Japan in the Venice Biennale with "Phase of Nothingness", consisting of a large natural stone supported by a mirrored stainless steel column. The sculpture is now in the permanent collection of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. Sekine remained in Europe after the Biennale, exhibiting in Italy, Switzerland, and Denmark. Informed by his observations on art and architecture, urban and public space in Europe, Sekine returned to Japan to establish Environmental Art Studios, a public art agency, in 1973.
From 1978 to 1979, Sekine returned to Europe for the traveling exhibition of his work "Phase of Nothingness — Black". The solo exhibition toured from the Künsthalle Dusseldorf, Germany, to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; and the Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway. In 1993, Sekine and "Phase — Mother Earth" were cited by 30 participating critics, curators, and journalists in the survey “Postwar art best ten”, featured in the prominent art magazine Bijutsu Shinchō.
In 2001, Sekine was included in the exhibit Century City at the Tate Modern, London, for his critical role in the burgeoning Tokyo art scene between 1969 and 1973. He also participated in the Gwangju Biennale, Korea, the same year. Today, Sekine’s works are held in the collections of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, among others. Sekine is currently a Visiting Professor at Tama Art University and Kobe Design University.
Nobuo Sekine is highly famous as one of the key members of Mono-ha, a group of artists who became prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s. His work "Phase — Mother Earth", an earthwork first constructed in Suma Rikyu Park, Kobe, in 1968, is widely recognized as marking the beginning of Mono-ha, and as one of the most iconic works of this period in Japan.
Nabuo is primarily interested in exploring the relationship of natural and man-made materials to the spaces they inhabit.
