Rough trade gay

Rough, personal, artistic. Toughs or not, there is always the desire for the dangerous and different. Most of them were taken whilst travelling in Southern Italy. Scantily clad, some of his subjects, mostly young men, strike confident poses showing off their denim shorts and hats, while others cower, their eyes glancing at the camera with a vulnerable expression.

Karlheinz Weinberger Swiss, Untitled, Zurich c. Karlheinz Weinberger Swiss, Drei zusammen three together c. That is, Trade primarily present themselves as heterosexual in their lives and NOT part of the queer community. Through him he was introduced to the burgeoning gang culture in Switzerland.

Trade gay slang Wikipedia

Under the pseudonym Jim he began, in the mid 50s, to publish portraits in a gay magazine. The exhibition presents the rarely shown work of the photographer Karlheinz Weinberger Weinberger spent the largest part of his life working as a warehouseman for Siemens-Albis in Zurich.

They’re called Trade because they’re imported, traded in. Inhe met a young rocker named Jimmy Oechslin in the streets of Zurich and asked him, excitedly, if he could take his portrait. He was at times very commanding during photo shoots and had an almost ethnographic interest in gangs and biker culture.

I certainly had never heard of this photographer. The meaning of ROUGH TRADE is gay men who are or affect to be rugged and potentially violent; also: such a gay person. Often, the terms trade and rough trade are treated as synonymous.

That’s why there’s argument to be gay that nobody on drag race could possibly be Trade. Karlheinz Weinberger Swiss, Untitled c. Teenagers under the influence of American culture celebrated their own lifestyle by wearing customised jeans and by riding motorcycles.

And the earlier crutch photograph with the mating of Elvis and Vince over a skull and cross bones which has delicious, subversive homosocial overtones. Notice also how the crouching nude lad looks almost identical to the lad in the photograph below, with his hands thrust into his pockets emphasising the crutch area.

In an oeuvre that spanned many years, Weinberger portrayed what lay behind the curtains of s bourgeois Switzerland, finding ways to document deviancy without ever putting his protagonists on display. In addition to the photographs in rough settings, Weinberger trade took pictures in the improvised studio in his living room.

Often the attraction for the gay male partner is finding a dangerous, even thuggish, partner who may turn violent. From the day he received his first camera at a very young age, which was given to him by a lover, he felt the urge to take pictures.

Notice how in the photograph of the male reclining with candlestick, the form of the candlestick mimics the spidery tattoo on the hand in the photograph above.

Defining 39 DL 39

Although he had a day job as warehouseman and never really made money with his shots, he maintained this passion until the end of his life. In his free time, he was a self-taught photographer, portraying his lovers and people he met in the street.

Many thankx to the Kunstmuseum Basel for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. Weinberger was totally fascinated with photography. Another relatively unknown artist, people whose work I like promoting in this archive.