Cooper post 1 - Nobuo Sekine






Nobuo Sekine is a Japanese artist who was part of the Mono-ha movement, a group that was instrumental in advancing and diversifying Japanese Art between the 1960s and 70s. The group made art that unified things from the natural world with industrial materials. Sekine is influenced by Japanese landscapes and the natural world, as well as rock gardens and configurations. I consider him an artist that uses scientific methods to produce art inspired by the natural world.
Sekine produced a series of thirty-five works titled “Phases of Nothingness - Black.” They are black sculptures that were first molded with clay. After the clay, Sekine covered each sculpture in plaster. From the plaster molds he poured layers of liquid plastic combined with black carbon into the plaster molds. I consider this process scientific because it involved experimenting with materials through many phases of trial and error as well as mixing chemicals to achieve the desired finish.

I also think the artist achieved a suspension of disbelief in regards to the weight and material of the objects. The sculptures at first seem heavy and solid, as if they are made of volcanic rock or glass. Being made only of plastic there is an interesting binary between what appears to be true and what is actually true regarding the weight of the sculptures and their relationship to the natural world.

The sculptures are part of the floor in a different way than a sculpture on a podium would be. They are installed in a way that occupy the space of the room creating a more natural experience. A miniature landscape forms that the viewer walks through and experiences in a way similar to a zen garden.
All of the sculptures represent images from nature like rocks, crystals and dirt. In a way, they are a reinterpretation and study of objects from nature, presented like artifacts. The sculptures also extract some of nature's more simple forms like circles. The piece is asymmetrical and arranged like a real-life abstract landscape. Nobuo Sekine sums up his piece saying "dissecting various sculptural forms horizontally, creating form as membrane and a neutral "landscape as abstraction - this is the fundamental theme."

http://www.nobuosekine.com/nobuo-sekine/fragment-on-phase-of-nothingness-black/

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