Art lights Kosice streets.

(From The Slovak Spectator)

IN KOSICE, contemplating a piece of art at three in the morning has now become possible even for those who have not honed their lock-picking skills. The reason is that the city, holder of the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) 2013 title, recently launched a project entitled Citylight Gallery, which aims to make art a part of people's everyday lives. Its first exhibition was presented to the public for two weeks during May.

The project is based on the "bringing-the-mountain-to-Muhammad" principle, a common feature of ECOC activities in general: the city's numerous six-sheet advertising boards, known in Slovakia as "citylights", will be from time to time given a new, non-commercial role, namely presenting works by various artists, both local and foreign.

"Citylight Gallery is an attempt to affect the urban area, connect art with the public space, surprise potential viewers and use the exhibited works to communicate with citizens," Zora Jaurova, artistic director of the Kosice ECOC 2013 team, told The Slovak Spectator, adding that these objectives fit perfectly into the concept of the city as an interface between its residents and the cultural sphere, which actually gained Kosice the prestigious title.

However, the framework would not be sufficient if the exhibits did not follow the same path, explained Tomas Makara, who was, together with his colleague Radovan Cerevka, in charge of organising a first display that would best convey the ideas of Citylight Gallery to the local audience.

The two curators, who are also members of the promising Kassa Boys artistic group as well as of the successful Make Up Collective association, opted for a theme they considered highly topical, namely Slovak-Hungarian relations. The result was a display of eight posters by different authors titled National Pills. Though these have gone on show twice already, between May 11 and 16 and again between May 19 and 25, the display may re-occur in future.

"National Pills follows the tradition of art engage, which should criticise the ills of ...