Peter Zownir

Peter Zownir is a German-born photographer and filmmaker who has been capturing the underground culture of cities around the world since the late 1970s. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Vice Magazine.

Born in Germany in 1954, Zownir was raised in a small village near Munich. He studied photography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Munich and began his career as a freelance photographer for magazines such as Stern and Der Spiegel. In 1979, he moved to New York City to pursue his passion for photography and filmmaking.

In New York, Zownir quickly became known for his gritty black-and-white photographs of the city's underground culture. He documented punk rockers, drag queens, graffiti artists, and other marginalized figures who were often overlooked by mainstream media outlets. His work was featured in several books including "New York Underground" (1984) and "The Other Side of New York" (1986).

In the 1990s, Zownir shifted his focus to documentary filmmaking. He directed several films about underground culture including "The Last Beat" (1996), which follows a group of young musicians living on the streets of Berlin; "The Last Punk Rocker" (1998), which chronicles the life of an aging punk rocker; and "The Last Outlaw" (2000), which follows an outlaw biker gang in California.

Throughout his career, Zownir has continued to document underground culture around the world with an unflinching eye for detail. His work has been exhibited at galleries around Europe and North America and is held in numerous private collections. He currently lives in Berlin where he continues to photograph and make films about life on the margins of society.