KATERINA (KAT) GORLENKO
Arts Scholar
PENTATHLON
Semester 2
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my second semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
PENTATHLON 1: "SPIDER" BY LOUIS BOURGEOIS
2/5/22, The Sculpture Garden, "Spider"
#visualart
"Spider" has to be one of my favorite sculptures to date. There are very few works of art I can say genuinely make me feel something but Louis created something that evoked a visceral feeling in me. It was a combination of the large scale and the grotesque look of it that truly made me feel uncomfortable and insignificant. It is to say that art can create real feelings and emotions, not even with its message or meaning but just the physical characteristics. It made me want to look art differently, to experience it as a physical entity rather than something that must be understood or analyzed. Sometimes the feeling you get from a great piece of work has nothing to do with the artists intended meaning but just how you experience it. But if I had to analyze its impact, I would say it sort of describing how silly human fear is. For example, spiders are very tiny in real life, a couple inches at most, but we are so terrified nevertheless. Now image if spiders were THAT size, larger than a tiger or even elephant! Humans really do fear things, not realize how much worse it could be and how lucky we are. I feel the sculpture might also possibly encapsulate the very idea of fear. This disgusting, huge, dark entity that almost takes us over. I left the sculpture garden wanting to explore with size in my own art. How can scale affect the feeling I am trying to portray through my work?
PENTATHLON 2: LYRIC RECORD MAKING
2/18/22, Bel Air Lounge, Coffee and Crafts
#presentation #ArtsScholars
I really enjoyed the Lyric Record making for many reasons. My favorite part though was the fact that I created this piece of artwork for my roommate instead of myself. My roommate has been my absolute rock this year and I wanted to give her something personal and handmade to show my gratitude. I feel like this notion of making art as a gift for someone else connects to the idea we were discussing in Art Scholars about how art builds community. Though I didn't know Maliyah's favorite song (Slow It Down by The Lumineers) or the lyrics, I still created this piece knowing that no matter my opinion, she would love it a lot, and that is all that mattered. As soon as I finished though, I went and actually listened to the song and began to really understand the lyrics I was writing and drawing. I felt more connected to Maliyah knowing about a song that really resonated with her, almost like I was discovering a little part of her that was hidden. I also built that sort of understanding and community with the other people who attended the event. We each shared our song choice and what it meant to us. I learned so much about these people I had never met before just by finding out their favorite song. The songs we enjoy show a super vulnerable part of ourselves. I know that I only share my music with people I really trust, and that sharing of the art we like to consume establishes our community. I also feel this activity kind of melded two art forms together, the visual arts and performance arts, because we drew song lyrics on a record we cut out. I like that we combined art forms and explored the fact that no art forms are mutually exclusive, and it is the combination of them that makes them even more beautiful. I feel in that we we are creating a community between art forms. Both music lovers and visual art creators can come together on a project, communally.
PENTATHLON 3: YUNG GRAVY CONCERT
2/11/22, Echostage DC, Yung Gravy and Dillion Francis Concert
#music
It has been a very long time since I have been to a proper concert due to the pandemic, but seeing Yung Gravy was just the perfect reintroduction into it. One thing I really missed about concerts was this idea that we read about and discussed in Art Scholars called collective effervescence. In the article “Just what is it that makes today’s music festivals so appealing?” by Pauwke Berkers and Janna Michael, this concept is described as “the perceived energy resulting from the gathering of a large group” or “the energy of being together and feeling collective sentiments”. The article talks specifically about festivals but I think the same applies to concerts. We had key ingredients, bodilly co-presence (for the first time in a while), a barrier to the outside, mutual focus of attention (my love Yung Gravy), and a shared mood. It also ended with that sense of solidarity (I went with a friend, her parents, and my brother and now whenever we see each other we bring it up), the emotional energy, and I have my own sacred object that I actually keep in my phone case, my ticket. I also had X’s on my hands to show I was under 21 that I didn’t wash off, and I was always proud to tell people about where I got them when they asked. To be honest, I really didn’t want them to ever come off. It was interesting to be at the concert and not just do the regular thing, dance and sing along and stand in the sweaty crowd, but actually think about why I was enjoying myself and how I was actually participating in collective effervescence. Even though I was tired, hot and overstimulated, I was having the time of my life, and when I look back at my ticket or pictures I get those fond memories.
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PENTATHLON 4: DOUBLE PORTRAIT
3/21/22, The Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
#visualart
I want you to take a guess at who the artist of this painting was. Did you say Picasso? If so, you are wrong. It is the 18th century German artist Max Beckmann. After I took my selfie with what I thought for sure was a Picasso, I was shocked to read it was not what I expected. The style used in this painting is very indicative of Picasso's famous cubism and expressionism as well as a similar dark, jewel-toned color palette and almost unfinished brushstroke style. I thought this phenomenon was extremely interesting in terms of some of the concepts we discussed in Arts Scholars about how art can build and establish community. This specific painting as well as Max Beckmann are in the same community as Picasso (after doing some research), and we can see that they obviously both took ideas from each other and grew their expertise by collaborating, even if not directly. Artists let each other influence their work and learn from others, which in term helps the community and shared bond grow, which yes, can lead to some paintings between artists looking similar, but just as in music, musicians make songs that may sound similar, just as a by-product of creating within that community. I have noticed in my theater community if I hear someone do something cool with their voice, like a certain riff or intonation, I try to incorporate it into my singing as well, which I think is another great example of this phenomenon, where as your shared art form and dedication to it creates community, it may also cause you to become more similar to those in the community with you. I feel that if I wasn't in the theater community, my personality would be very different, and maybe if Max Beckmann wasn't alive when Picasso was or wasn't living near him. their art would look drastically unalike.
PENTATHLON 5: LATER THE SAME EVENING
4/16/22, Kay Theatre, Maryland Opera Studio
#music #theatre
"Later The Same Evening" was one of the strangest but best operas I have ever seen. I have never attended an opera done in such a non-traditional way. First, it was in English, which shocked me, as most classic operas are in Italian, or other European language. Second, the opera was based off an artist. Each story in the opera was based off a specific painting and then they intertwined to create one storyline, all in "the same evening". Last, the lyrics were all just stream of consciousness. Every singer just kind of said what they were thinking, or just talking to each other regularly, not in some deep, dramatic way that I am used to in operas. These characteristics that I have mentioned as to what made this show so untraditional were also why I enjoyed it so much. Too often do we think that certain forms of art must only be performed one way, because that is just how it has been done for centuries. Paintings must be realistic, operas must be in Italian, dance must be rhythmic, but most of the time it is the lack of the traditional that makes things like modern art and interpretive dance so incredible, because you have never seen anything like it before. I also thought the idea to base an opera on paintings was an interesting combination of two art forms I truly hadn't seen before. I was able to imagine the story behind the painting in a way that can be hard to do when you see a painting in a museum alone with thousands of others. I became enveloped in the story and see the art works in a totally different way now. I feel urged to create my own stories for paintings I see in my regular life now (maybe I will just have to make an opera!).
