The beauty of LBMA’s portrait exhibit is providing your own backstory

CHANTAL by SEAN CHEETHAM

The gangly teenager with the anti-Bush and pro-peace buttons pinned to his baggy red V-neck sweater has a face like an empty slogan. The only hint that the boy might have a flicker of inner conviction—and please, don’t get your hopes up—is his right hand, which dangles at his side, but is almost clenched.

That’s the politically disaffected Anykid that I saw in John Nava’s Stop the Dim Reaper, a large and almost photographic painting that is one of the highlights of the Long Beach Museum of Art’s current exhibit “About Face: Portraiture Now.”

But then I read the wall card. It explained that Stop the Dim Reaper is a portrait of Nava’s son—and that Nava is very proud of the young man because, among other things, he is against Bush’s war . . . and was already against it in 2005, when fewer people were, and when this portrait was painted. Good for him.

Not so good for us, though. The typewritten words on the wall card may clarify the portrait, but they also pretty much drain the mystery, the purpose, maybe the message—hell, the art—from what Nava has done in oil on canvas. If all we wanted was an update on Nava’s kid we probably could have checked out his MySpace page.

Granted, there is another lesson here—most pointedly, that it’s easy to misjudge a person. Obviously, I read Nava’s son wrong. If I ever meet him, I’ll apologize.

But I’m not going to meet him, nor probably any of the other people in the portraits—rendered in a variety of styles and media by 35 artists—assembled for “About Face.” And none of them are famous, either. Who they are doesn’t really matter.

“About Face” is exactly that—a formalized version of people-watching. It is most enjoyable when the watcher is free to take people at what is literally their face value, react to that and—here’s where it gets most artful—translate it all into a context, supplying a story in places where the painter has left spaces.

Fortunately, most of the portraits allow for exactly that kind of experience. Their wall cards are helpfully short on the distracting clutter of facts. They permit some unencumbered exploration and speculation.

For example:

Is the woman in Michelle Fenniak’s anxietal oil, First Aid, worried that she’s being watched as she secrets away some illicit medications? Are those tubes in her hands even medications at all?

In Freshman, F. Scott Hess appears to have presented us with a young man at one of life’s pivot points—someone whose wide and overwhelmed eyes betray the cool of his boho beard. Then again, maybe the dude’s just hung over from last night’s frat party.

And what about the middle-aged babes in P.S. Life, DJ Hall’s depiction of happy hour in the verdant back yard of what looks like an upscale Palm Springs housing tract? Are they really happy or is it just the martinis?

Eventually, there’s another of Nava’s big portraits—Lizzie Cornwell—and this one lets us wonder about the blonde-and-freckled 10-year-old. Her face, already full of her own opinions, suggests a girl mature beyond her years. Do kids like that stay ahead of the game? Or will the next 10 years drain away that advantage?

Getting to spend this much time staring people in the face without having to worry about being caught is benefit enough of “About Face.” We don’t really need or want to know anything more—unless, maybe, Sean Cheetham can get me the phone number of Chantal, the self-tribalized hipster. Hot!

ABOUT FACE: PORTRAITURE NOW LONG BEACH MUSEUM OF ART | 2300 E OCEAN BLVD | LONG BEACH 90803 | 562.439.2119 | LBMA.ORG | OPEN TUES-SUN 11AM-5PM | THROUGH MAR 23, 2008 | $6-$7; CHILDREN UNDER 12 FREE; FREE ADMISSION FRIDAYS

Tags: lbma, Long Beach, PORTRAITURE