These Artists Focus Camera Inward

Settle down, class, it’s time for a little art appreciation. So just gather in close around this hedge and train your binoculars on that upstairs window . . .

See that man undressing? See that woman going through therapy with a camcorder? This, boys and girls, is not a canvas hung on the wall, splashed with color, but it is art.

Or, is it simple voyeurism?

It’s a question brought up by the Long Beach Museum of Art’s current video installation, “Diaries.” Do we look to art for its creative impulse, or to catch a glimpse of the artist?

After all, art is self-expression. So aren’t we simply looking for the artist, within the expressive context of art?

OK, OK. We’re asking too many questions. But the whole idea of a museum installation, in which artists are encouraged to reveal the secret selves they would exhibit only to a diary, does bring up some interesting issues.

So let’s just take a quick look at the four artists and their work included in “Diaries.”

Michel Auder took 24 years of accumulated film and videotape to create his diary entry. His journal is based more on experience than emotion and includes most of the truly fabulous denizens of New York’s downtown art scene, integrated with hours of television scenes. The whole exercise presents a kind of historical overview of alternative lifestyles and the media. Even Andy Warhol makes an appearance.

From Auder’s age and breadth of experience, we go to Sadie Benning, an emerging artist who began her video diary at the age of 15. Filming herself, her secrets, some of her body parts and a few cherished toys over a three-year period, Benning offers us her coming-of-age story.

Lynn Hershman’s work is, like Benning’s, an exploration of the self. Her revelations run the gamut: She considers her position as an artist; she claims to have been a prostitute. At one point, Hershman says she never lies. Whether that statement, or any other element, is absolutely true is a question left to the viewer.

Finally, there is George Kuchar, best known for the underground films he made with twin brother, Mike, during the 1960s. Decades later, Kuchar picked up a video camera and began recording everything around him. And we mean everything. Here are slightly absurdist views on everything from the weather to death to bodily functions and sex.

Don’t go to the installation, though, hoping to get a glimpse of these lives in 30-second sound bites. This is 18 hours of tape. But you get all that for just $2 admission. You can also record your own diary entry, with a video camera the museum has set up just for this purpose.

The Long Beach Museum of Art is at 2300 E. Ocean Blvd. “Diaries” continues through Nov. 14 and can be viewed Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Information: (310) 439-2119.

--EMILY ADAMS