David Goldblatt
1975 (taken) 2009 (print)
Girl with purse, Joubert Park, Johannesburg
[Particulars]

Gelatin silver print
45 x 44,3 cm (image)
 
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Register number: DE01968
 
(Alan Griffiths, 27 May 2026) David Goldblatt’s 1975 photograph Girl with purse, Joubert Park, Johannesburg, from his seminal Particulars series, completely strips away the aspirational glamour of fashion photography to offer a raw, intimate study of human vulnerability. Rather than presenting the purse as a manufactured status symbol or a highly styled accessory meant to project wealth, Goldblatt centers the composition entirely on the subject's body language: her tightly clasped, protective hands wrapped around a small, modest zipped purse resting on her denim-clad lap. In the tense socio-political climate of Apartheid-era South Africa, this defensive gesture transforms an ordinary utilitarian object into a poignant symbol of hyper-vigilance, economic anxiety, and the basic human instinct to guard one's meager personal belongings in a hostile public space. By focusing on the tactile relationship between the subject's weathered hands and the cheap zipper of her wallet, Goldblatt redirects the viewer's gaze from a consumerist desire for the object to a profound empathy for the individual, capturing an entire narrative of socioeconomic reality through a single, quiet moment of physical tension.
 
LL/60046