Particulars
David GOLDBLATT: artist
This series of photographs was produced between 1975 and 1985. They depict people living under South Africa's apartheid rule. While the apartheid policy focused on abstractions such as "black and white" Goldblatt's works counter this monolithic position by their portrayal of human individuality.
"My first awareness of a bodily particular that I can recall was of the bulges made by the flattened flesh of my inner thights as I sat in shorts on a bench in kindergarten. From where I sat my bulges seemed more pronounced than anyone else's and I tried to hide them with my hands. After a time I realized that my inner thighs were no different from others. But it remained an area of the body of which I was especially aware and which, in time in girls, came to have a strong attraction for me. I have never been able to decide whether my sense of people's bodies is something I share with others or whether mine is different or perhaps more acute. Nor am I sure for how long I have had it. What I do know is that it has been with me for a very long time and that it is often intense and 'detailed.' I seem to have an innate propensity which has been fed by life experiences and heightened by a kind of hyper-awareness that photography sometimes enables and demands...
In 1975 after working for about five years on a series of portraits of my compatriots in the street and homes of Soweto and the suburbs of Johannesurg, it seemed natural, almost inevitable, that I should extend what I was doing to an attempt to explore their bodies, or rather, the particulars of their bodies, as affirmations or embodiments of their selves." David Goldblatt
from www.americansuburbx.com
"My first awareness of a bodily particular that I can recall was of the bulges made by the flattened flesh of my inner thights as I sat in shorts on a bench in kindergarten. From where I sat my bulges seemed more pronounced than anyone else's and I tried to hide them with my hands. After a time I realized that my inner thighs were no different from others. But it remained an area of the body of which I was especially aware and which, in time in girls, came to have a strong attraction for me. I have never been able to decide whether my sense of people's bodies is something I share with others or whether mine is different or perhaps more acute. Nor am I sure for how long I have had it. What I do know is that it has been with me for a very long time and that it is often intense and 'detailed.' I seem to have an innate propensity which has been fed by life experiences and heightened by a kind of hyper-awareness that photography sometimes enables and demands...
In 1975 after working for about five years on a series of portraits of my compatriots in the street and homes of Soweto and the suburbs of Johannesurg, it seemed natural, almost inevitable, that I should extend what I was doing to an attempt to explore their bodies, or rather, the particulars of their bodies, as affirmations or embodiments of their selves." David Goldblatt
from www.americansuburbx.com
Title
Particulars
Artist/Maker and role
David GOLDBLATT: artist
Date
1975-1985
Medium
silver gelatin print
Measurements
20 units, 40.0 x 60.0 cm (each)
Credit line
Purchased 2002
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
2002/0252.1-20