The Transcendental World of Cubes By Muriel de Lamarzelle

A space explorer, daring to transport us into the finite and infinite, the dichotomy between In and Out, Gabriele Dal Dosso fearlessly enters the mysterious world of cubes. It’s a geometric realm of transitory realities, a place where this risk-taking artist attempts to “square the circle,” and to offer us “instruments” for rejuvenating meditation. Awash in color, these multi-materia philosophical objects allow us, as William Blake wrote in Auguries of Innocence, “to hold infinity in the palm of your hand.”To experience that wonder, the ephemeral of the physical world, I entered Gaby’s universe.

ML: Gabriele, where does your passion for dynamic sculptures come from?

GD:Since my childhood I have been passionate about origami. A precocious passion which marked my life course by giving me the impression that reality, physical as well as psychic, was a modular entity made up of folds and counter-folds. From these assemblies I could go back to the basic square and know the rules. All the philosophical, meditative, mystical disquisitions were in fact only a kind of geometric exegesis, of a cube in particular (one of the forms known for a long time by mankind), to which I gave a round dimension by combining it with the Möbius strip. This makes it possible to relate the linear nature of the inorganic world to that in the round of the biological world. Subsequently I became interested in philosophy, mathematics and geometry. Today I seek to transform a philosophical idea into a tangible object. I want to show a real alchemy between scientific data, thought and form without it ever being frozen. I wish we could get lost in it and find our way around as in a meditative process.

ML:What interests you about the Möbius tape?

GD:I have known the Möbius strip from a young age, and it has always fascinated me. It is an object that can be manipulated endlessly without encountering obstacles since it has only one side and not two. He is the perfect representation of infinity. With the Möbius strip we lose all our reference points. I once read in a science fiction book the definition of a Möbius cube, an object that I searched for for years and wanted to create.

ML:Tell us about the message you send with your creations and why did you call it CUBO DI GABO?

GD: I’m interested in construction and deconstruction when one object can hide another when you manipulate it, when you unfold it and twist it. The figure is constructed but is immediately deconstructed to take another form. The inside / outside, open / closed, finite / infinite dichotomies fall, losing the boundaries that are known to us. You just have to open it to see a hidden labyrinth unfold, the complexity of which you only discover when you manipulate it. At that moment my hands become actresses, they embody thought. My work on the CUBO DI GABO is like a textbook on the anatomy of a cube, which shows what can be contained in a cube. It is an instrument for meditating on physical scales other than those of our daily life, scales close to infinity. I ended up calling it CUBO DI GABO because, as far as we know, Möbius never speculated that from his tape one could make a cube.

ML: These sculptures can be designed through different materials, which was the first that you chose and why?

GD: In the CUBO DI GABO works, I approach various materials, wood, volcanic stone from Vesuvius, Carrara marble, onyx, glass, and neon, to achieve a 2D transposition of my works. At the same time, I am interested in 3D printing as a sculpture, a perfect reproduction of my studies in limited series. I like raw materials, minerals and metals in particular, and I wanted to work on them for their proximity between their intimate structure and their form which are the basis of my study, the Platonic solids in primis and the forms present. In nature that mankind has detected for thousands of years. I also like the idea of working on these ancestral materials with avant-garde artisans and techniques. To each form corresponds a function, and to each function an appropriate material.

ML:Tell us about the M3.Dodecaedro.Rombico.Fontana project which is very close to your heart.?

GD: Topology is the study of topos, “place” in Greek, physical space as narrative and the most emblematic space of humanity, the one that most identifies us as human remains the city. This is the reason why I chose the urban space to deploy the concept of CUBO DI GABO. The Möbius strip is revealed in this space as a call to fully enter it.

This fountain project should take shape soon. It has been delayed by the vagaries of the health crisis for eighteen months but discussions are underway.

ML:You are part of the “ARTIST DESIGN” exhibition which takes place from September 8 to 30, 2021 at the Molin Corvo gallery in Paris during Paris Design Week, what is it exactly?

GD: The “ARTIST DESIGN” exhibition will be a unique and surprising encounter that combines design and contemporary art with the Molin Corvo gallery which also represents me. Four artists and a designer will participate in this project for which I have developed a concept of a coffee table with two stools from the CUBO DI GABO. For this project I decided to work with 3D printing for the base and glass for the top. The choice of materials follows my philosophy of always exploring new techniques to go beyond a realization, let’s say, more traditional. Each CUBO DI GABO is a geometric translation of famous verses from William Blake’s poetry, Auguries of innocence: