Whitehot Magazine

January 2008, GOEDELE NOBELS @ 7 Hours Haus 19


 Installation view GOEDELE NOBELS @ 7 Hours Haus 19

GOEDELE NOBELS PIECE OF MIND
7 HOURS HAUS 19
30 JUNE –28 JULY 2007



7 Hours Haus 19 is an exhibition space situated slightly off the beaten track in the same area as Berlin’s University Campus. In its previous life you could find cows living there. That is why to those in the know, it is also referred to as the ‘Cowshed’. The Government funded building is “certainly one of the best things Berlin can receive” according to Miki Bunge, who basically manages the all its affairs. The ‘7 Hours’ part of its title comes from Miki’s experiences in New York, where she had rented an exhibition space and finding herself with seven remaining hours to use the building, once she had finished with it. Thus the name has been kept and associated with events she has organized ever since.


 Installation view GOEDELE NOBELS @ 7 Hours Haus 19

Goedele Nobels ‘Piece Of Mind’ was supposed to have been part of a ‘2 guest Experiment-Installation’. The Belgian free-thinking artist’s opposite number in this exhibition Jane Hughes, was going to join her with another series of exhibits that would have been ‘Plastic Relations’ but for an unknown reason this partnering exhibition didn’t take place. So Goedele can be forgiven by anybody who thought this event was slightly too minimal. However there did seem to be enough substance available within ‘Piece Of Mind’, for it to sustain a whole area on its own. None of the pieces appeared out of place against one and other, even though She may have had a rethink to double the impact of her work, and fill a gap left by the absent collaborator.


 Installation view GOEDELE NOBELS @ 7 Hours Haus 19

The first thing you notice when arriving at ‘The Cowshed’ is a cold welcoming due to its stone factory-like feeling. Banners hang at the front setting the mood “1st is not eating/planting, perhaps this is metaphoric to what she is doing in an artistic sense. A voice more than likely to be that of Goedele echoes across the room and talks about feeling “big” probably referring to her mind state, “The Third Eye”. “Before there was nothing”. This artist possesses the ability to make her audience think about themselves and the world around them, from an alternative point of view to what might be ‘the norm’. One of her paintings particularly stands out as it demonstrates an understanding of the Fifth Dimension.

There was a healthy mix of 3-D installations that were slightly lit in an elegant manner, heart warming hand-made murals, and a concluding video piece that was projected onto the far wall. These projected images also ran in tandem with the echoing audio track that abruptly attracts your attention on arrival. It also provides a more in-depth look at some of the featured pieces within the exhibition.


 Installation view GOEDELE NOBELS @ 7 Hours Haus 19

Some may find the work gets quite personal whilst also spiritually deep “My next carnation I’ll be just like you”, Catocala Nupta, Red Orphan Child. The title ‘Piece Of Mind’ does prove to be self-explanatory and appropriate as Goedele Nobels gives us a rare well-explained insight into her creative way of thinking in the Fifth Dimension.

Simon Devenport


Simon Devenport was a youth-leader in his native city
Nottingham, England. Now he is a freelance writer living in Berlin.
sjd77@hotmail.com

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