David GoldblattPlayground, Chiawelo, Soweto. September, 1972
David Goldblatt’s ‘Johannesburg’ series is a photographic record of the city during a critical period in apartheid South Africa, with most of the images captured between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s. Focusing on the central business district and surrounding urban areas, Goldblatt documented the city’s architecture, street life, and social dynamics with a characteristically restrained and analytical eye. The series includes images of office workers, traders, pedestrians, security guards, and commuters. Goldblatt was particularly drawn to the tension between the city’s modernist facades and the underlying systems of racial segregation and labour exploitation that sustained them.
In these photographs, Goldblatt avoided sensationalism or overt political messaging, instead capturing the ordinary rhythms of life in a highly stratified urban environment. Johannesburg appears as a city of stark contrasts: of towering banks and marginal street vendors, of transient movement and rigid control. The visual language is consistent with Goldblatt’s broader practice – precise, formally composed, and rooted in a deep ethical engagement with the everyday. While later works would return to Johannesburg from different angles and in different eras, the photographs from this period remain a defining early statement in Goldblatt’s lifelong examination of South African society through its spaces and structures.
