Exhibition Period
26th August 2025 – 10th October 2025
Venue
SGA Three on the Bund, 3F, No.3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai
Artists
Nobuo Sekine、Kishio Suga、Lee Ufan
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This August, Hushen Art Museum is pleased to present the group exhibition Mono·Substance & Beyond. Bringing together Korean artist Lee Ufan, Japanese artists Kishio Suga and Nobuo Sekine, the exhibition centers on the radical artistic practices of Mono-ha (literally, “School of Things”), a movement that emerged in Japan in the late 1960s. Through a selection of seminal works, the exhibition examines how these artists employed natural and industrial materials—stone, wood, steel plates, paper, and others—to articulate the intrinsic presence, tension, and vitality of substance itself. The exhibition will be on view from August 26 to October 10, 2025.
While revisiting the historical trajectory of Mono-ha within the postwar East Asian context, the exhibition simultaneously seeks to reframe its significance in contemporary discourse. To “negate things with things,”and to apprehend the world through the relations of substance to its surroundings—such was the conceptual ethos of the movement. Here, audiences are invited to encounter anew the interrelations among “object,” “space,” and “participant,” and to experience how these relations transform perception itself.
Through the unadorned presentation of material, Mono-ha artists sought to displace the modernist preoccupation with form and image, returning art to a primary and pre-linguistic register of experience. For them, the essence of the artwork lies in substance itself—not in elaborate craftsmanship or decorative excess, nor in explanatory discourse. It is through the weight, texture, and state of being of things that art discloses its presence.
In this sense, Mono·Substance & Beyond is not merely an exhibition of objects but an experiential field. Viewers are not passive spectators but active participants in a constantly shifting spatial dynamic. Movement and stillness within the exhibition space perpetually activate the tensions among materials, subtly altering the state of the works. The body, the gaze, and sensory perception of the audience intertwine with the presence of matter, generating relations that are never fixed but continually in flux—relations through which a renewed apprehension of the world may emerge.
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About the Artists
Nobuo Sekine（1942，Japan）
Born in 1942 in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, Nobuo Sekine graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Oil Painting from Tama Art University, Tokyo, in 1968. As a founding member of the Mono-ha movement, Sekine uniquely integrates postwar Japanese culture into his practice, exploring it through his art. His artistic style centers on Mono-ha while incorporating elements of Land Art, Installation, and Minimalism, emphasizing the aesthetic principle that “nature itself is the most beautiful.” Through the combination of natural and industrial materials, his works investigate the relationship between objects and space, forming a distinctive visual language.
Kishio Suga（1944, Japan)
Born in 1944 in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, Kishio Suga graduated from the Painting Department of Tama Art University in 1968. He is a prominent contemporary Japanese artist and is regarded as one of the central figures of the Mono-ha movement. Suga’s artistic practice primarily focuses on exploring the relationship between objects (Mono) and space, as well as the latent connections that emerge from their interaction. By combining natural and industrial materials in their unprocessed states, he emphasizes the interdependent relationship between these elements and their surrounding environment.
Lee Ufan（1936, Korean)
A contemporary Korean artist, philosopher, and poet, Lee Ufan is also a central figure in the Japanese Mono-hamovement. His artistic style is characterized by minimalism, Zen sensibility, and a philosophy of nature, emphasizing the inherent presence of materials and their relationship with space. In his paintings, he often employs simple points, lines, and brushstrokes to repeatedly convey the passage of time and the material’s flow.
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Gallery
