Megan Plunkett
Leave It
September 9, 2022 to October 29, 2022
Leipziger Straße 56-58, Berlin, Germany
Exhibition Text
Signs and Wonders
- How and why do you think something is “knowable”
- “ “ “possessable”
- “ “ “capturable”
- How to imply scale without a human referent
- How the map is not the territory
Dreamland I
- On his commentary track, Steve Buscemi, who directed the episode1, notes that the Wegman poster TONY looks at while he is having sex with VALENTINA was added later on.
AG: What about the dogs?
LG: Dogs are surrogates for us. In newspaper descriptions of battles of struggles, of bombarded cities, invariably dogs are wandering around the debris. The dog is that kind of symbol… I’ve recently used a quote from WH Auden’s poem, ‘In Memory of WB Yates’ (1939): In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark
The dogs were barking in 1939 and they’re barking today in 1999.2
MP: “ “ 2022.
Dreamland II
- A mirror image anticipates the image but is not identical to it.3 When something seems normal until it doesn’t.
- There is something here that resonates. It is like what you already know. You see the carcass but never the killing.4
- “In Camelot”, The Sopranos, David Chase, Season 5, Episode 7, HBO, 2004.
- Leon Gotlub, as quoted in “Faith in Art” zine by Ethan Swan.
- Alan Trachtenberg, “Wright Morris’s Field of Vision”.
- Susan Lepselter, The Resonance of Unseen Things, 90.
Installation Views
Artworks
Artist Biography
Megan Plunkett’s serial photographic practice examines the unstable relationship between image and object, questioning how visual suggestions affect perception. Her photographs blur fact and fiction, taking an unconventional view toward common objects and everyday scenes, and blending a variety of practical effects and photographic techniques. Scale is distorted, clarity is confounded, and expectations are upended in her work, initiating a new, uncanny reality.
Plunkett (*1985, United States) lives and works in Los Angeles. She has presented two solo exhibitions at Sweetwater, most recently in 2025. Other recent solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Dracula's Revenge, Emalin, and F Gallery. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Wig, the Bonner Kunstverein, and MOSTYN. In 2024, she was named co-chair of Photography at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.