Karlheinz Weinberger
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Romeo (Werner Berger), Boss of the Revenger Gang, Zurich, ca. 1962
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Zurich ca. 1961
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Zurich, ca. 1962
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Hardau Zurich, ca. 1960
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Member of the Tiger Gang, Zurich ca. 1962
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Knabenschiessen Albisgüetli Zurich, 1962
Karlheinz Weinberger, from Rebel series, Zurich ca. 1962
Born in Zurich in 1921, Karlheinz Weinberger was a self-taught Swiss photographer, who supported himself through various working-class jobs. For almost four decades, from the 1950s through the early 1990s, he documented various underground or dissident lifestyles, his subjects were gay men, motorcycle gangs, and tattoo artists among others. He originally used the pseudonym Jim when in the 1950s his photographs began to appear in the magazine The Circle published by a Zurich-based gay social club. Fascinated by how Swiss youth were essentially ramping up the sexuality of the Hollywood image of the rebel, Weinberger followed several biker gangs through the early 1960s. Back in the U.S. the filmmaker Kenneth Anger was exploring similar themes with subversive films such as Scorpio Rising (1963). Karlheinz still lives in the apartment where many of these photographs were made 50 years ago.
