Located in the Old Town of Vilnius, the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) is one of the largest contemporary art venues in the Baltic region. It is a public institution founded in 1992 by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. The CAC aims to enrich the cultural life of the city and the local and international discourse of contemporary art, and create valuable professional opportunities for artists and other participants in the field.
The CAC organises a programme of 10 to 15 exhibitions a year as well as performances, film screenings, other types of events and a wide range of education programmes. It also acts as a publisher. Every three years the CAC organises the Baltic Triennial – one of the most ambitious international exhibitions in North Europe. The CAC regularly collaborates with international art biennials and venues to present Lithuanian artists’ work abroad, and has overseen the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale a number of times.
The main venue of the CAC reopened in mid-2024 following a major renovation that began in 2021. During the renovation, the CAC organised exhibitions and events at various locations in Lithuania and abroad, curated the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, and continued its education programmes and publishing projects. As a result of the renovation, some of the CAC’s functions – the CAC cafe, Cinema, Sculpture Garden and Fluxus Cabinet – remain temporarily closed. However, in spring 2024, the CAC expanded its activities by opening a new branch in the Antakalnis area of Vilnius – the Sapieha Palace – and now offers a total of approximately 3000 sq. m. of exhibition space as well as several spaces for special events.
Exhibitions are now open in the newly renovated main building of the CAC.
The Contemporary Art Centre and Sapieha Palace employ about 60 members of staff.
KĘSTUTIS KUIZINAS headed the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) from its establishment in 1997 until October 2024.
Prior to this, from 1992, he served as General Director of the Lithuanian Art Exhibition Directorate, overseeing three structural divisions: the Vilnius Art Exhibition Palace, Šiauliai Art Gallery and Druskininkai Children’s Art Gallery. Since 2024, he has been director of the National Institute of Architecture, newly established by the Ministry of Culture, with its headquarters in the former Kaunas Central Post Office building.
From 2018 onwards, Kuizinas led the implementation of two major EU Structural Funds projects: The Activation of Sapieha Palace and The Modernisation of CAC, the latter involving the comprehensive renovation of the CAC building. As the institution’s artistic director and as an art historian and curator, he has curated and organised more than 50 exhibitions of Lithuanian and international artists in Lithuania, the United States and across Europe. He served as Commissioner of the Lithuanian National Pavilion at the 49th, 54th, 57th and 59th International Venice Biennales in 2001, 2011, 2017 and 2022, and curated Lithuania’s presentation at the 26th São Paulo International Art Biennial in 2004.
Since 1994, he has been a member of the Lithuanian Section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA); since 2003, a member of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM); and since 2023, a member of both the Council of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. In 2006, he was nominated for the prestigious Walter Hopps Award in the United States for his achievements in curating exhibitions.
His honours include the Knight’s Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit (1998), the Medal of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (2013), and the Knight’s Cross of the Order for Merit of the Republic of Poland (2019).
VALENTINAS KLIMAŠAUSKAS has until now been better known as a contemporary art curator and writer.
His major international curatorial projects include the Pavilion of Lithuania at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, ‘Inflammation’, co-curated with João Laia and featuring artists Pakui Hardware and Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2024; the contemporary art festival ‘Coast Contemporary’ in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, 2023; Baltic Triennial 14: ‘The Endless Frontier’, co-curated with João Laia, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, 2021; Alexandra Pirici’s choreographic project ‘Pulse’ at the Kaunas Ninth Fort Monument to the Victims of Nazism, 2020; and the Latvian Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, co-curated with Inga Lāce and featuring Daiga Grantiņa’s solo exhibition ‘Saules Suns’, 2019.
In 2024, Klimašauskas published the English-language book Telebodies. Bleeding Subtitles for Postrobotic Scenes (Mousse Publishing, Milan), which forms part of his doctoral dissertation in art, defended at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Klimašauskas is also the author of the fiction books Daugiakampis (Six Chairs Books, Kaunas, 2018), Oh, My Darling and Other Texts (The Baltic Notebooks of Anthony Blunt, Vilnius, 2018) and Alfavilnius (Kitos Knygos, Vilnius, 2008). He has also published various texts in A Prior Magazine, As a Journal, Beyond, Cura, Dot Dot Dot, Flash Institut, Flash Art, Kim Docs, Kunstnernes Hus, Good Times & Nocturnal News, Šiaurės Atėnai, ŠMC Interview, Metropolis M, Mousse, Nero, Paletten, Spike and elsewhere.
ARCHIVE OF THE CAC’S ACTIVITIES
This website provides insight into the latest news regarding the CAC’s activities as well as the archive of CAC’s activities that goes back to 1992. Researchers interested in further information are welcome to send their inquiries via email to [email protected].
Photos: Andrej Vasilenko