Visual Art Criticism Awards is established by the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), the National Art Gallery of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, and the digital magazine of contemporary art Artnews.lt. This annual initiative, considered long overdue, seeks to draw attention to and celebrate texts about visual art, their diversity, quality, authors, art publications, and art itself. According to the initiators, the awards will not only create more intrigue, but also strengthen the motivation and professional solidarity among writers and bring a greater awareness of the best texts and programmes of the year to readers, listeners and viewers.
The prizes are awarded in four categories: Short Form, Long Form, Texts by Artists and Curators, and Phenomenon of the Year. The Short Form category will include articles, interviews, reviews and other short texts of art criticism and research as well as individual episodes of TV and radio programmes, podcasts and other texts about art in non-written form. The Long Form category will encompass series of articles, collections of texts and other large-scale works.
The category Texts by Artists and Curators focus on texts published as an integral part of an artwork, exhibition or other presentation, or as autonomous publications of art writing that do not primarily aim to reflect on other phenomena in the art field. This nomination seeks to draw attention to texts on art that go beyond art criticism.
The final category, Phenomenon of the Year, make a single award for an exceptionally significant contribution to the development of visual art criticism in Lithuania. The phenomenon does not necessarily have to be in the form of writing or recording—it can be an initiative or an event of any kind.