The Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize seeks to discover talented writers on contemporary art. The winner of the Prize receives £1,000, their review is published on Burlington Contemporary, and they have the opportunity to publish a review of a future contemporary art exhibition in The Burlington Magazine. 

Since its foundation in 1903, The Burlington Magazine has considered the art of the present to be as worthy of study as the art of the past. The Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize advances our commitment to the study of contemporary art in the magazine and on Burlington Contemporary. Designed to encourage aspiring writers, the Prize promotes clear, concise and well-structured writing that is able to navigate sophisticated ideas without recourse to over-complex language.

This year the Prize will be judged by Griselda Pollock and Legacy Russell.

Submission Criteria:

Entrants must have published no more than six pieces of writing in print or online prior to their submission. This does not include personal blogs and websites. 

'Contemporary' is defined as art produced since 2000.

There is no age limit for applicants.

To enter the prize, entrants should submit one unpublished review of a contemporary art exhibition by the specified deadline. The exhibition under review should be current or have closed within the last six months at the date of submission. The review must be no more than 1,000 words in length and accompanied by up to three low-resolution images.

About our Judges:

Griselda Pollock is Professor Emerita of Social and Critical Histories of Art, University of Leeds, and Laureate of the Holberg Prize 2020 for her work in feminist art history and cultural analysis. Recent Publications include After-Image/ After-Affect: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation (2013),  Charlotte Salomon in the Theatre of Memory (2018),  Concentrationary Imaginaries: Tracing Totalitarian Violence in Popular Culture (2015) edited with Max Silverman, and Concentrationary Art: Jean Cayrol, The Lazarean and the Everyday in Post-War Literature, Music and the Visual Arts (2019). Recently published in 2022 is a revised all-colour edition of her 1995 monograph on Mary Cassattas part of the Thames & Hudson World of Art series. In July 2022 her latest book, on Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Marilyn Monroe, will be published by Manchester University Press, titled Killing Men & Dying Women: Imagining Difference in 1950s New York Painting.

Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen, New York. Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell holds an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London, with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry and new media ritual. Russell’s written work, interviews and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming via Verso Books.