THAMI MNYELE + MEDU ART ENSEMBLE, retrospective

216 pp., 4to., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2009

Published on the occasion of the Thami Mnyele and Medu Art Ensemble Retrospective Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Gallery, November 2008 - March 2009.

Artist Thami Mnyele was born in Alexandra Township in 1948. In the early 1970s he met Wally Serote and joined Serote's and Molefe Pheto's Mihloti Black Theatre and later the MDALI collective. He studied at Rorke's Drift for a short time and worked as an illustrator for SACHED (South African Committee for Higher Education) before going into exile in Botswana in 1979. Here he joined the ANC, became a cadre in Umkhonto we Sizwe and worked with the MEDU Art Ensemble, founded by Wally Serote. The MEDU Art Ensemble (1978-1985) was an ANC cultural organisation that produced photography, film, theatre, dance, music, art and posters. In 1985 Thami was killed, along with six other members of the ANC, in the South African Defence Force raid on Gaberone.

Contributions include "Thami Mnyele and the Art of Tragedy" by Diana Wylie,
"Word and Image: a dialogue - the art of Thami Mnyele" by Elza Miles,
"Medu: art and resistance in exile" by Sergio-Albio González,
"The Art of National Liberation: the Thami Mnyele and Medu Art Ensemble Retrospective" by Judy Seidman, and
"Medu Art Ensemble and Revolution" by Mongane Wally Serote.