17. Adalberto Abbate
(Palermo, Italia 1975)
Aeternum, 2008
Collage fotografico su PVC
Photographic collage on PVC
260 x 200 cm
Courtesy: Spazio Rivoluzione Palermo

18. Adalberto Abbate
(Palermo, Italia 1975)
Semel Pro Semper, 2008
Bronzo e proiettile da mortaio
Bronze and mortar shell
30 x 30 x 15 cm
Courtesy: Spazio Rivoluzione Palermo

A distinctive strength of Adalberto Abbate’s (Palermo, Italy, 1975) artistic approach lies in the dual perspective from which he examines reality: one is public and collective, shaped by socio-anthropological analysis; the other is private and subjective, grounded in memory and personal perceptions of truth. This interplay results in work that is layered and resonant, capable of prompting reflections that go beyond mere moral judgment.
Irony plays a key role in Abbate’s practice—not as an end in itself, but as a tool to disarm the violence of reality. Through a grotesque lens that balances cynicism with revelation, his works do not simply denounce; they provoke, unsettle, and raise questions. It is precisely this sense of discomfort that makes his work a compelling and essential voice within the landscape of contemporary art.
Abbate’s pieces do not deliver definitive moral lessons. Rather, they open a “disenchanted window” onto new interpretive possibilities. He does not accuse—he reveals. And in doing so, he calls upon the viewer to assume their own sense of responsibility.

17. In Aeternum (2008) underscores the ambiguous tension between fiction and reality that runs throughout Abbate’s body of work. Composed through a collage of archival photographs, the piece creates a short-circuit between historical memory and visual artifice, prompting the viewer to question the reliability of the image and the very nature of remembrance.
The seemingly intimate scene—a grandmother posing proudly beside a “commemorative” piece of furniture assembled from remnants of war—takes on an ironic and unsettling dimension. The transformation of a World War II bomb into a domestic furnishing, complete with a vase of fresh flowers, serves as a powerful metaphor for the normalization of violence and the aestheticization of tragedy. At the same time, it reflects the human tendency to conflate beauty and horror.
Abbate suggests that historical memory is often sanitized, repackaged as decoration, and stripped of its traumatic essence. The work navigates between sarcasm and subtle critique, drawing attention to the fragile boundary between testimony and erasure, between lived experience and the narratives we construct to make that experience bearable.

18. Semel Pro Semper (2008) takes the form of a monument to memory—an evocative meditation on loss and generational responsibility. A young girl, astride a dog, carries a World War II bomb: a paradoxical image that juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the enduring weight of history.
The dog, a symbol of loyalty and protection, accompanies her through a quiet journey marked by vulnerability and resilience. It becomes a metaphor for fragile yet steadfast support. The scene is a powerful allegory for the ways in which children and adolescents are often swept up in events beyond their control—such as war—and, tragically, may become its unknowing protagonists.
In a society increasingly prone to losing its grasp on meaning, Abbate restores a central role to youth, inviting critical reflection and underscoring the lyrical and political dimensions of his work. Semel pro semper, meaning “once and for all,” becomes both a call to remembrance and an ethical gesture—an enduring act of poetic resistance against forgetting.