The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

On our commune everyone has to work. We chase off the freeloaders. The commune has to make money. It has to be a business, then it can grow. The government isn't going to take care of you. You have to band together to help each other

1976

Bill Owens

(American, b. 1938)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 22 x 16.3 cm (8 11/16 x 6 7/16 in.); Paper: 25.1 x 20.2 cm (9 7/8 x 7 15/16 in.)
Gift of George Stephanopoulos 2019.301
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

There was a serious decline in job satisfaction in America in the last half of the 1970s.

Description

In his examination of people’s attitudes towards their jobs, Owens gives us the subjects’ own words to accompany his images of them. The series was not as much a critique as a mirror that allowed people some distance from which to view their situation. This and his other projects conveyed both the comfort of suburban middle-class life and an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with it.
  • ?-2019
    George Stephanopoulos [1961-], New York, NY
    December 2, 2019
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • {{cite web|title=On our commune everyone has to work. We chase off the freeloaders. The commune has to make money. It has to be a business, then it can grow. The government isn't going to take care of you. You have to band together to help each other|url=false|author=Bill Owens|year=1976|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.301