World Arts and Cultures/Dance (WAC/D) Professor Mary "Polly" Nooter Roberts, who serves as a consulting curator for African arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, recently established a gallery there dedicated to the arts of Africa. The inaugural exhibition, "Shaping Power: Luba Masterworks from the Royal Museum for Central Africa," is based on her earlier work, including a traveling exhibition and book co-authored by Nooter Roberts and WAC/D Professor Allen F. Roberts that was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Her doctoral research in art history at Columbia University was conducted among the Luba people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"Shaping Power" will give her another opportunity to develop materials from two years of conversations with Luba friends and documentation of Luba political practices and performances, with special emphasis on the role of women and the deliberately ambiguous gendering of royal authority. Nooter Roberts teaches about Luba culture and arts in WAC/D courses for undergraduate and graduate students.
