Mark Bennett has a new show here in DC of his art – meticulously drawn floorplans of familiar places from American pop culture entertainment. His previous show at the Corcoran, which I was drawn to because of my own penchant for this odd interest, featured floor plans and drawings of such famous TV locales as the Cleaver’s house, Gilligan’s Island, and Samantha & Darrin’s lovely Cape Cod. I used to obsess this way myself, mentally creating a floor plan as I watched TV, trying to figure out what the place was actually like. My bent was more toward figuring out the actual sets, how they were oriented on the stage, what part connected with what part. Bennett, instead, creates the actual world where these buildings exist. His drawings complete that fourth wall and make the illusion real. They’re not exactly true to what you see on screen, instead, they are the fleshing out of what is hinted at.
His latest drawings are brought forth from film rather than television, and include floor plans of the Bates Motel and the kitchsy ranch home from Kitten With A Whip. His show is at the Conner Contemporary Art Gallery through May 10.
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Oh, I love these. I’d come across either some of these or someone else’s similar efforts a while ago, and it was so nice to see these referenced here. I definitely need to go to his show.
Gilligan’s Island, though… doesn’t it seem /way/ too small? Why the entire island here is no more wide than about four times the width between the two furthest huts. It just feels like there should have been a great deal more of it than that. And it didn’t seem very smart to build the supply hut just a hut’s width away from the quicksand pit… oh, why am I even using the word “smart” in the same paragraph with the words “Gilligan’s Island”?
Discussing the merits of the layout of the architecture so seriously, I feel almost like the aliens in “Galaxyquest”:
“Surely you don’t think that /Gilligan’s Island/…?”
“Oh, those poor people.”