Of Minor Importance

16 Jul-15 Aug 2026

PV 15 Jul 2026, 6-8pm

Overview

Alice Amati is pleased to present ‘Of Minor Importance’ – a group exhibition bringing together nine international contemporary artists and the works of modern masters Fernando Botero, Georges Braques, the exhibition unfolds across the gallery premises in London and the project space Domus Nostra in Rome, creating a moment for a unique intergenerational and transnational conversation.

Rooted in the 17th-century European hierarchy of genres – a system that placed history painting at the summit of intellectual and moral value while relegating still life, landscape, and animal painting to the margins – the exhibition revisits and unsettles this inherited order. Bringing together works of modern masters alongside contemporary painters, the exhibition traces a lineage of attention to the so-called “minor.” In these artists’ hands, what once were considered modest subjects – objects, interiors, animals, and landscapes – are used to address the urgencies of the present, from ecological crisis to shifting human–nonhuman relations and political uncertainty. Rather than reversing the classical hierarchy, 'Of Minor Importance' attempts to dissolve it, proposing a different set of values in which quiet observation, intimacy, and persistence rival spectacle and narrativism. What emerges is a space where the overlooked becomes essential, and where painting speaks most acutely to the conditions of its time.