Marlies von Soden

Light has taken on various forms in the course of its reception history. No one makes the fragility and materiality of this dualistic medium more tangible than Marlies von Soden. For she transforms light in its delicate, fleeting materiality into a textile medium - or so it seems.
For over 40 years, the Hamburg-born designer has been giving form to a supposedly immaterial phenomenon. As a trained costume designer and stage designer, von Soden works at the intersection of fashion, design, art and stage. Instead of ordinary tools, von Soden uses a so-called "extruder" industrial machine that heats polypropylene and pushes it out in smooth sheets. The addition of pigments and the artist's intervention create graceful, sweeping forms that harden in their actual state - supposedly temporary, fragile and at the same time durable. Marlies von Soden creates light objects as if they were wrapped in rococo robes and stiffened silk. In her artistic career, she has experimented with various materials such as neoprene, Tyvek and phenolic foam. Her light objects can be found in renowned contemporary collections such as that of Madame Olivetti or in the Robert Wilson Design Museum on Long Island.