Theresa Keegan
Stu News Laguna
Sep 12, 2025
The latest colorful, jam-packed show at the Laguna College of Art + Design’s Gallery is, appropriately, turning heads.
Heads, which is offering a public curator talk on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 11 a.m. is an exhibition that defies expectations. After all, how exciting could it be to look at a bunch of images just from the neck up? In reality, the show is revealing, thought-provoking and very powerful.
The latest colorful, jam-packed show at the Laguna College of Art + Design’s Gallery is, appropriately, turning heads.
Heads, which is offering a public curator talk on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 11 a.m. is an exhibition that defies expectations. After all, how exciting could it be to look at a bunch of images just from the neck up? In reality, the show is revealing, thought-provoking and very powerful.
“There’s nothing more empathetic than the human head,” said Dan McCleary, who curated the show with Luis Serrano. “Everyone responds to it.”
In fact, the two well-known California artists found inspiration for this show from Head On/The Modern Portrait, a 1991 show curated by Chuck Close for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Each had seen the traveling show when it was in Marina Del Rey. Its impact was recalled when discussing themes for a new show at Art Division, a Los Angeles school they are involved with. They decided to recreate a similar show. And added in the goal to make it a traveling exhibition, hence how it has arrived in Laguna Beach.
“It’s a testimony to the collaborative nature of Luis and I,” said McCleary. “Neither alone would undertake this effort.”
More than a year in the making, the original exhibition at Art Division boasted more than 120 pieces, while the version of the show in Laguna Beach has about half that many. Its impact is still powerful.
There are works by famous artists, not so famous artists and students. There are pieces from people’s private collections, from independent artists the curators know and from estates of artists who have died. There are finely crafted reflections of people’s faces and there are abstract images. There are bold and muted colors as well as black and white. There are paintings and sculptures. Some pieces show faces that are obviously sad, others happy. Many moods depend on a viewer’s interpretation, and some pieces avoid the face all together.
Heads reflects McCleary and Serrano’s concerted effort to have various interpretations and representations in this exhibition.
“We were not exercising aesthetic charity,” said Luis Serrano. “We made it a point to have present artists and women artists represented well.”
He explained that while Close’s 1991 MOMA exhibit pulled from curated museum works, this exhibition reflects a cultural value.
“Many of our artists have not been approved by time or institutions. But on a personal level it’s equally engaging,” said Serrano.
McCleary said one of the show’s biggest problems was there were too many options.
“We had old masters and renown artists and students and we said, ‘how about this person, and how about that person?’ It just kept growing,” McCleary recalled. “At one point we had to say we need to stop.”
The initial exhibition was scaled down from its initial 120 pieces to almost half for the LCAD show, but there were still issues such as, selecting pieces, arranging insurance and transportation (McCleary personally drove many pieces to Laguna in his Subaru) that created some challenges for the current exhibition.
Serrano is quick to credit Bryan Heggie, gallery manager, for the innovative LCAD display.
“He took these pieces and figured out how to arrange them,” said Serrano. “Presenters are critical to a show.”
He explained how interactions between a model and artist may be passive, but they are influential to the creative process. This then unleashes a conversation between the piece and the viewer. In Heads there is an added element because the nearby pieces also demand attention.
“In this case it becomes a triad,” explained Serrano. “It becomes more communal.”
While LCAD is the second showing of Heads, organizers are hoping it could be a springboard for another location when the show ends September 21.
“The beauty of this exhibition is it’s iterative, meaning it ebbs and flows,” said Diana Fitzgibbon, marketing director at Art Division. “It allows for an ever-changing discourse around the curatorial concept…you might never well see the same exhibition of Heads twice.”
On opening night, students from LCAD’s figurative drawing class attended, capturing their own renditions of the show, while also absorbing the display.
“I’m super inspired with the art here,” said student Isabel Thomas. “Some of the color schemes and blendings are so muted.”
During Saturday’s Curator Talk, Serrano will be joined by Peter Zokorsky, LCAD’s chair of the Master of Fine Arts program in drawing and painting.
Ironically, in 1991 Serrano and Zokorsky, who attended grad school together, went to see the MOMA show at Marina Del Rey.
“At the time we were blown away by the simplicity and concept,” recalled Zokorsky. He looks forward to hearing Serrano’s personal insights into the art pieces during the talk and will also reveal an element of his own piece that is in the show and that moves. Both expect an inviting, open atmosphere for the talk and hope the public will attend to gain new insights into the show.
“LCAD does some magnificent things, but this one (show) casts a larger net,” said Zokorsky. “I guarantee that no one will walk into the gallery knowing every artist. Everyone is going to discover new work. It’s a broad survey of a narrow subject.”
Heads will show at the LCAD Gallery, 374 Ocean Ave. through September 21. The Curator Talk on Saturday, Sept. 13 begins at 11 a.m.
Art Division is a library and free art education program in Los Angeles for people, ages 18-27, who don’t have access to traditional art education programs. It was founded 15 years ago by Dan McCleary. Enrollment varies between 80-100 people at any given time. For more information, visit Art Division’s website here.
“They’re incredibly gifted young adults and many go on to get degrees and work in the arts,” said Zokorsky.