WEINBERGER, Karlheinz - Halbstarke

"With 'Halbstarke' begins a series of five books with the pictures of the extraordinary Swiss photographer Karlheinz WEINBERGER.

The series of books begins with pictures by WEINBERGER's long-term study of Swiss youths, rebels who have made a clear impression of the overall picture of a bourgeois Switzerland from the end of the 1950s with jeans, toothed hair, leather jackets and their love for rock'n'roll. 'Halbstarke' shows many previously unpublished recordings from the WEINBERGER archive.

In other thematic volumes his sports recordings, trips abroad, rocker and tattooed are also to be published.

"In 1958, Zürich photographer Karlheinz WEINBERGER first captured the likeness of 'Halbstarke' (rebel) Jimmy Oechslin, an artistic moment which marks the genesis of this collection of images focused on young Swiss teenagers. 
That particular photographic encounter triggered WEINBERGER’s life-long fascination with outsiders and nonconformists in the otherwise staid environment of Switzerland.

The photographs presented in this first of several volumes about his work offer a rare glimpse into a bygone world that seems almost cute and quaint from a contemporary perspective, but make no mistake: just dressing in jeans, sporting a beehive hairdo and hanging chains around one’s neck was a statement as loud as blasting music by Buddy HOLLY or Jerry Lee LEWIS on a normally quiet Swiss Sunday afternoon in that era.

WEINBERGER’s work was discovered by the art scene shortly before his death in 2006, and his artistic trove revealed tens of thousands of prints, slides and negatives that have been collected, archived, numbered and indexed over the course of the last decade. Many neverbefore seen images were discovered during this process, and thus the idea to publish thematic volumes with a single theme was inspired.

With 'Halbstarke' as Volume #1, Sturm & Drang publishers will follow with more releases that cover topics such as sports, tattoos and insignias, his travels to the South of Italy, and the extensive work he did with biker gangs and rockers in the 1970s and 80s.
All the first editions of these volumes will be limited to 1200 copies." (publisher's note)

Current and upcoming exhibitions: 
31. May - 27. August 2017, PhotoEspaña Madrid
3. July - 24. September 2017, Rencontres d’Arles
5. October - 31. December 2017, Mérignac Photographic Festival
2018, Kornhaus Bern

About the photographer Karlheinz WEINBERGER (* in Zurich, died in 2006):
"Karlheinz WEINBERGER grew up in Zurich, where he attended the literature gymnasium from 1936 to 1939. In the 1930s he took photos with an Agfa box, and from 1955 worked as a warehouse manager at Siemens-Albis until 1986.
He photographed predominantly people on the margins of society and documented the back of the bourgeois life in Switzerland.

Between 1948 and 1967, under the pseudonym Jim, he regularly published photos in the international homosexual magazine Der Kreis and took part as a 'Hoffotograf' at the events of the magazine. From 1958 he began photographing the half-bikes and later bikers, rockers and tattooed. In 1960, he retired from the clubs' club life, but continued to publish photographs in the Kreis as well as in the successor magazine Club 68.

In the 1960s the Swiss undertook various trips to Sicily, Tangier, Lipari and Lampedusa, which generated a variety of images.
From 1964 to 1976 he was also active as a freelance sports reporter. He was particularly interested in wrestling, swinging and motor sport." (translated publisher's note)