Sekine Nobuo, Phase of Nothingness - Water (位相 - 水), 1969. Steel tanks filled with water. Part of his ongoing Phase of Nothingness (位相 - 無) series.
Encountered at the Pinault Collection Minimal exhibition, 2026.
Grows from
- Sekine Nobuo - the artist.
- Mono-ha - the concept it inaugurates in material form.
The door - why it matters
Water held flat in a steel frame, level with the rim. Nothing has been made; the tank simply lets water sit at the edge of containment, and the surface becomes a mirror that holds the ceiling, the room, me looking down. The work isn’t the water and isn’t the tank, it’s the phase between them - what happens when one substance meets another at the threshold. The “nothingness” is literal: nothing was added. The framing is the whole gesture.
Credit
Sekine Nobuo, Phase of Nothingness - Water (位相 - 水), 1969. Encountered at Pinault Collection, 2026.