Davis & Davis – Artist Statement

Planet X

Toy spacemen of the late 40's and early 50's combine a pre-Sputnik naiveté about space travel with a cold war paranoia about all things alien. Their art deco space suits feature bell jar helmets and back-slung, oxygen tanks; their elaborate ray guns bulge with deadly, high technology. Because they appeared before the dawn of the Space Age, they don't look like the astronauts we know today and seem to recall a future yet to come. For the series, "Planet X," we photograph these spacemen as they struggle with robots and other technology, with monsters and aliens, and with themselves in the barren, cratered landscape of

Planet X. 

The search for Planet X began in 1841 as the search for the eighth planet in our solar system and continues today as the search for the eleventh. Planet X was first renamed Neptune, then Vulcan (Urbain Le Verrier's intra-Mercurial planet), then Pluto, then Niburu (Zecharia Sitchin's "12th planet") and now Xena (the recently discovered tenth planet). Planet X is not a real planet, but rather a placeholder for planets yet to be found. In a mathematical sense, it is a variable: X = n +1, where n is the number of the last discovered planet. 

Planet X, in its role as the perpetually undiscovered sphere located at an ever-greater distance from the Earth, embodies both our hopes and our fears for the future. Our photographic series "Planet X," takes viewers to a strange and fantastic world where anything can happen.

Artists’ Statement: Small Talents

According to Abraham Maslow, there are two types of esteem needs: self-esteem, which results from mastery of a task and leads up the hierarchy to self-actualization, and the need for attention and acknowledgment from others, which harkens back to the lower need for love and belongingness.  A talent show can fulfill both kinds of esteem needs, provided there is both mastery on the part of the performer and acceptance on the part the audience. Anything less short-circuits the process, leaving the performer feeling inferior and unwanted.x 

 In the series, Small Talents, we photograph found dolls as would-be talent show contestants seen at the beginning, middle or end of their performance. The viewer becomes the audience for and judge of each contestant’s talent, asking him- or herself, has the performance finished (or even begun), does the performance rise to the level of talent, and finally, what is the talent in question?