Common Love,
Aesthetics of Becoming
April 27–June 11, 2011
Ronnie Bass
Our Land, 2006
Single-channel video, color, sound, with Bear Sculpture, 2006
Video: 11 min.; sculpture: 56 x 15 x 15 in.
Courtesy the artist
Ronnie Bass infuses the subject of his work with dreams of utopia, romanticism, and self-realization as a way to counteract difficult and seemingly oppressive environments. The installation Our Land centers on a nine-minute video that follows the fictional narrative of Chad, a suburban computer store manager played by Bass, and his two faithful employees. The three are united by a shared woodcarving hobby, as they carry out their vision to build a microchip factory and new community in the desert. Constructing a mise-en-scène of fundamentalist revivalism, the American West, and a low-tech version of Silicon Valley, the video's deadpan musical account points to the inherent irony in the group's attempts to forge solidarity, friendship, and a sense of common understanding in the contemporary capitalist world. Bass completes the installation with a sculpture of a bear (the finished product from Part I of the video) and a houseplant, creating the effect of a bureaucratic waiting room or a Protestant church.