Here's a heads-up for must-see "Heads (dis)Embodied" at Kirkland Arts Center

All you have to do is look at the exhibition lineup — more than a dozen of the region's top artists — and you can tell that "Heads (dis)Embodied" at the Kirkland Arts Center is a must-see. Then add the fact that it was curated by the smart former director of Seattle's public art program, Jim McDonald, and that he focused on a single irresistible image — the human head — and the icing is on the cake. This is art that's easy to love. Take your parents. Take the kids.

Sometimes theme shows seem forced to fit around an idea that doesn't necessarily hold up. In this case, the connection is such a natural it's a wonder nobody spotted it before. Those who make the gallery rounds have no doubt seen a number of these sculptures already. McDonald noted a trend and made good use of it.

Even before you step into the gallery, the exhibition starts working. David Jacobson's concrete "Apple Tree Head" lies toppled outside the front door like a contemporary ruin and a reminder that all civilizations, rulers and even the rest of us must eventually fall. I thought of the heads of Roman emperors at SAM, of television images of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down and of the delicious irony of seeing an image of the once-mighty Lenin now standing as a bit of kitsch in Fremont. Statues and portrait heads have long been commissioned as symbols of power. What happens to them after the power ends is even more interesting.

Portraits serve other functions, too, as you will see when you step inside the gallery. Veteran ceramist Akio Takamori painted his own visage on a round-cheeked vase, so that the top of his head has a big hole in it. I imagined that open-minded vessel with a bunch of flowers sprouting from it — a perfect metaphor for such a creative brain.

Another Seattle artist known for startling portraits is Scott Fife, who coaxes operatic performances out of a homely material: cardboard. To create the mesmerizing presence of his oversized sculpted head "Geronimo (Goyathlay)," Fife patched, pared, painted, glued and screwed together swaths of cardboard to suggest a man weathered and perhaps psychologically wounded, but still resolute as he faces a troubled future.

Fife's "Marilyn," on the other hand, didn't speak to me. Was the artist aiming to represent the famous 20th-century sex symbol, known for her bodacious curves, quicksilver expressions and sophisticated wit? Even if it was the idea of Monroe's suicide he meant to evoke, Fife's "Marilyn" strikes me as too stiff-haired and vapid eyed, more like a Barbie doll.

Other artists in the show didn't intend for their sculptures to look like anyone in particular. Dan Webb gave ideas center stage and all three of his carved wood pieces are total delights. The first you'll encounter is "The Voice" — you know, that oddly disembodied way singers sometimes refer to their instrument. Webb envisions it as some mysterious animating force that blasts from the throat of a knobby little puppet head with a gaping "O" shaped mouth. It's certainly "The Voice" that's running that show. Webb's sense of humor gets an upper hand in the wondrous distortions of his other two sculptures, "Squeeze" and "Stretch," in which he manages to make wooden heads look like they're made of Silly Putty.

I could go on and on about each piece in this show, but it will be more fun for you if I save room for lots of pictures here. Before I sign off, though, let me genuflect briefly before the transcendent work of Lauren Grossman. The image she created in "The Bereaved" holds the essence of that experience in its molten surface, its deeply expressive face. Her materials, lead and ceramic, echo the emotional music of the theme with suggestions of toxicity, fragility and transmogrification. Unforgettable.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com