The King is a Woman: Shaping Power in Luba Royal Arts

Mary Nooter Roberts is Professor in UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and Consulting Curator for African Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is the author and curator of thematic books and exhibitions that explore the philosophical dimensions of African visual arts and expressive culture, such as secrecy, memory, writing and inscription, as well as topics of the body and female representation, arts of divination and healing, and theories of exhibiting. Together with Allen F. Roberts, she produced the award-winning works Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (1996) and A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal (2003). In 2007, she was decorated by the Republic of France as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for her promotion of francophone African artists. proberts@arts.ucla.edu