Thu Oct 14, 2004 - Sat Nov 13, 2004 Davis & Davis Childish Things & Small Talents Website

Description Those who have managed to save a favorite toy from childhood are aware that a kewpie doll, a teddy bear, or a plastic soldier can be a prodigious storehouse of memories. Just as cherished toys recall the joys and warmth of a happy childhood, lost and abandoned toys retain repressed memories of prepubescent trauma and the deep-seated guilt associated with the playing of forbidden games. It is in this highly charged and loaded arena that Los Angeles husband-and-wife photography team Davis & Davis dwell. Commemorating the publication of their first book, Childish Things, Heather Marx Gallery will mount Davis & Davis’ second solo exhibition featuring work from their decade-long series Childish Things, as well as debut new pictures from their most recent series, Small Talents. Often found on the streets or bought at thrift stores, the artist’s exhaustive collection of forgotten dolls and toys serve as catalysts for innate desires and terrors. Acting as anthropologists, Davis & Davis analyze and then stage their subjects into artificial tableaus that hint at hidden meanings and repressed memories. The artists then photograph these scenes with a shallow focus that suggests the bleary selectivity of memory. It is the contradictory nature of “innocence and transgression inherent in a toy, and in the everyday lives of their owners, that motivate Davis & Davis to create alarming but seductive images,” writes Tyler Stallings, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Laguna Art Museum, in his essay for Childish Things. Following in the recent tradition of staged photography by such artists as Gregory Crewdson, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall, Davis & Davis attempt to reach for the truth through both ingénue & artifice, humor & compassion. In the Childish Things series, for example, a baby attached to a barely visible bungee cord falls out of a window while its father rushes to try and catch it; an astronaut floats away from his spaceship after his lifeline snaps; a horrified little girl examines her measles in a mirror; an Eskimo child goes toe-to-toe with a polar bear, unaware of the killer whale looming behind him; a lady standing on a chair lifts her dress to a smiling, phallic worm. These images “beg us to question our childhood, our adulthood, our idealizations, and our sense of humor,” Stallings writes. The recent rash of talent shows for children and young adults inspires their most recent series, Small Talents. In typical Davis & Davis fashion, the artists have wielded their dark and playful wit to produce images that depict dolls in the act of a special “talent” ― such as an Octopus juggling in Octo #1 and #2 ― or a Keene-eyed doll incessantly spinning a globe ornament in Whirly Girl. Here, Davis & Davis have brilliantly unearthed the insidiousness of childhood competitions that rely not on team efforts, but rather on the performance of individual “tricks” encouraged and persuaded by demanding parents. Like Childish Things, Small Talents promises to be a funny and sardonic riff on the often vain pursuit of being a “winner” in today’s short-attention-span society. Denise & Scott Davis have collaborated on a variety of photography, video, sculpture, and installation projects over the last ten years. They have exhibited widely, including most recently at –scope Miami Beach; in “Not So Cute & Cuddly: Dolls and Stuffed Toys in Contemporary Art” at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, KS; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; and the Huntington Beach Art Center, among many other public and private venues. Their work is in the collections of the Ulrich Museum of Art, California State University Los Angeles, California State Polytechnic University Pomona, Cypress College, and the Kinsey Research Institute, as well as many private collections. Denise earned her MFA in Photography at the California Institute of the Arts. Scott graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a BA in Art and Communications and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Cal Arts. BOOK LAUNCH FOR CHILDISH THINGS, PUBLISHED BY SANTA MONICA PRESS ESSAY TEXT BY TYLER STALLINGS “The photographs of Davis & Davis access an uncomfortable part of childhood when play was charged with a scab-picking provocativeness, toys were made strange, and laughter came from a cruel region of prepubescent impulse. That point in the game when someone got hurt, and everyone ran home.” - Robert Mailer-Anderson, author, Boonville “These photos by Davis & Davis will make you laugh and squirm! You’ll love their wonderful look at child anxiety and sexuality: boy meets boy (or girl), a bunny lovin’ a carrot…this book is a must for your collection.” - Catherine Opie, photographer

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