An Artist for All Seasons: Mansa Mussa

Artist, photographer, performance artist and arts educator Mansa Mussa has sent West Orange some "Postcards from Paris," an exhibit running through Dec. 8 at the West Orange Public Library (WOPL). The shows' 10 wondrous photographs were chosen from 1000s inspired by Mussa's first visit in 2007 to the City of Light. (More about his photographs later.)

Arts Beat is sending him this open letter of appreciation.

Mussa has worked on behalf of his native Newark and his adopted West Orange home town for many years. He is a longtime board member of the West Orange Arts Council (WOAC), which organized the exhibit. Mussa coordinates the WOAC ArtStop student exhibits and leads arts workshops for children. He currently teaches photography for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark, the Newark Museum and Arts Horizons.

He is a master artist and teacher and the mentor and role model every child should have.

I have watched Mussa at work with young people during the museum's "Jazz in the Garden" performances and a mask making marathon at WOAC's annual Art Scene at the Green: He gave the same instruction, encouragement, inspiration and praise to the 98th child at 5 p.m. that he gave to the first child at 11 that morning.

"I have had the privilege of teaching children art, dance, photography, mask making and percussion for thirty years. I have learned the reason I teach is because I love to learn," Mussa said. "Each encounter lets me rethink my approach to seeing and making art and gives me great ideas about new ways to create art."

Mussa's quiet intelligence and dancer's bearing command attention. So do his signature caps, part African in inspiration, part homage to WWII soldiers and part Robin Hood. "I use cloth from West Africa or my favorite fabric store on Halsey Street I can wake up, sew one up in a half an hour and go out into the world having created something new for that day," Mussa said.

As to his art, for the past thirty-three years Mussa's camera had documented human events worldwide. Best known for his photographs of concert dance, his photographs and collages have been featured in many solo and group exhibits and published in several books, including the important "Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present."

Mussa makes the seemingly ordinary, extraordinary and makes us see the extraordinary with renewed wonder. "Postcards from Paris," represents the artist's first use of digital and color photography after years of devotion to film and black and white imagery.

The opening piece, "Postcards," is a photo-collage of postcard images of Parisian icons — the "Mona Lisa," the Eiffel Tower, the Rose Window from Notre Dame, a Toulouse-Lautrec "Moulin Rouge" poster — juxtaposed with object. Upper right, there is a small self portrait of the photographer, camera to his eye, overseeing the assemblage and asking us to see things through his vision. Slowly, the familiar takes on a haunting, new life.

Each of Mussa's photographs of Paris street life, architectural details and landmarks are dizzyingly beautiful, literally so in his "Joy Ride," 2007, which captures young Parisians circling on a vertiginous carnival ride.  Mussa's bird's eye view of a black cloaked Parisian ("Paris Man") is a startling, mysterious image. "I spied him from my sister-in-law's balcony and got the shot," Mussa said.

When the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889, it was a wonder of the world, but decades of ubiquitous images have diminished our awe. With Mussa's "Eiffel," the wonder is back.

Mansa said he believes in community and that he believes in the power of art to draw us together and to help us see life's meaning with a clearer vision:

"I am eyewitness to things seen and unseen. I try to bring the unseen to light and to inform the public through exhibits, classes and lectures," Mussa said. "My main purpose is to use art as a force that heals and enlightens the community." 

In addition to the WOPL-WOAC show, Mussa currently is in two group exhibits: "Faces of Yisrael," at the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, 145 Broadway, Newark, until Nov.14, and "Les Petits Travaux Montrant/The Small Works Show," at the Newark School of the Arts, 89 Lincoln Park, Newark.