I have been twisting my fingers over a couple of weeks thinking about my newest post, trying to come up with something that would really make people think….

Thanks to BLEND magazine for this really amazing interview to Oliviero Toscani.

OLIVIERO TOSCANI

He is the most controversial advertising photographer in the world. His name: Oliviero Toscani.
This Italian is responsible for some of the rawest advertising campaigns ever made. BLEND tried to talk to Olivero Toscani about advertising, which proved to be a difficult task.

Oliviero Toscani dared to connect global issues as aids, famine, and war to an Italian fashion brand. Everyone that grew up in the nineties remembers his photographs of AIDS-patients and death-row inmates aimed at selling casual sweater and jeans. His work for Benetton was controversial and not everyone like it, to put it mildly. Still Benetton stuck with Toscani for eighteen years. A smart thing to do, because it suddenly gave coolness to mainstream clothing.
But even Benetton wasn’t ready to deal with the enormous amount of criticism that came with the international We, On Death Row campaign in 2000, which featured pictures and information about 26 death-row inmates in the United States. Conservative America was shocked by this campaign, because its system was under attack. Protest from consumers and the families of the inmates’ victims even got retail giant Sears to drop Benetton. Toscani resigned after all the controversy that got the brand in financial trouble for the first time, and Benetton didn’t stop him. Since then Toscani still makes controversial advertising campaigns. His No Anorexia campaign showed a horrific picture of an anorexia patient for Italian fashion brand Nolita, and his campaign for men’s clothing brand Ra-Re portrayed two homosexuals. The campaign came amidst the on-going debate in Italy about gay rights and angered groups like the Catholic Italian Parents Movement, who called the pictures ‘vulgar’. Still, his later campaigns never attained the earth-shaking impact his work for Benetton had.

BLEND called the now 69 year-old Toscani, who is not even thinking about retirement.

Q: You changed the world of advertising completely with your Benetton campaign. Would it be as controversial now as it was then?
A: ‘I never want to speak about Benetton again. I gave up that account ten years ago. I work at La Sterpia now, my research facility for modern communication in Tuscany.’

Q: But Benetton made you famous and vice versa.
A: ‘What kind of question is that? You ask me about my ex-wife? That is not polite. But I will answer. I got another wife now. Much younger, much nicer, much prettier. And so much more intelligent than Benetton.’

Q: Are you still angry with Benetton for letting you go after the death-row campaign?
A: ‘I’m not angry. I don’t care at all.’

Q: How do you see your role in today’s advertising?
A: ‘I’m a photographer and my pictures are used in advertising campaigns. But I don’t do advertising. Do you hear me? I take pictures. I’m not an advertising agency. I’m not an advertising man.
Communication has always been at the service of power. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel for the Pope. Is it not an advertisement for the Church?
I try to make the best pictures I can and sometimes they are used in advertising campaigns.’

Q: You cant deny that you had a really important role in advertising. You showed the world that you can use advertising to get important messages across.
A: ‘All I’ve done is put a news photo in the ad pages.’

Q: The results were massive. The campaigns got loads of attention.
A: ‘Sure, I want to get people’s attention.
Communication, that’s what I do. Advertising is the best way to communicate because you reach a lot of people. I still cant understand though, why people are shocked by something that obviously exists. Its like a family that avoids talking about its real problems.’

Q: Advertising is mostly a dream world. Not a realistic image, but a world where things are most beautiful and better because that’s what we all want.
A: ‘I want a better world, but also a realistic world. We can only create a better world by becoming realistic.’

Q: Are you disappointed that there aren’t more advertising agencies that use advertising as a way to get social awareness out there?
A: ‘ I don’t care about products, so I never did advertising for products. I don’t care about selling anything. You want me to get into a system that I don’t have anything to do with by asking me about advertising all the time?’

Q: I don’t want to get you into any system Mr. Toscani. I am only interested in your opinion about advertising, because its a powerful way to communicate, like you said yourself.
A: ‘That is true. But I don’t do advertising. Advertising agencies don’t care about a better world in the end. They are servants of their client: what the client wants is what they get. Their only problem is to not lose the budget. I think its a shame because advertising is so boring and it can be so interesting. They should ask more artists to make interesting campaigns. You an go to the movies and really learn something, and advertising can do that as well, but it hardly ever happens. That is also why I don’t want to have anything to do with advertising anymore.’

Q: The Nolita campaign, with your picture of anorexic was quite recent. Anti-advertising is also advertising.
A: ‘I don’t like to call it advertising. I did extensive research on media and anorexia and found out that the fashion magazines are to blame in a way. They project an image of a woman that is completely absurd, but girls and women believe they should be very skinny. They don’t look like real woman anymore. Women from fashion magazines, they hate other women. They like to tell other women they are ugly and often it works. Women’s magazines are mostly about the outside and not about the inside. About make-up instead of arts and literature. Its such a shame.’

Q: People always dream of things they cannot have.
A: ‘I do not.’

Q: You dream of making this world a better place with your images.
A: ‘No, not really. I just want to show the world we live in. I research modern communication.’

Q: Would you be upset if you made a campaign that didn’t shock anyone?
A: ‘I don’t do this to shock, but to show people what is out there. What they should not close their eyes to. Sometimes I really don’t expect to shock and then I do. Like in your liberal country. We handed out condoms for Benetton in the shop, and people in Amsterdam got mad because of free condoms, but people in Sicily didn’t. I’m surprised all the time by morality.’

Q: Do you think censorship has gotten worse since the times you did the Benetton campaigns?
A: ‘Yeah, I think so. It got worse because of social mediocrity’. I’m not afraid of this, because I’m not looking for consensus at all. I will always do what I like to do. No matter what. I like to be different. Its not easy to work the way we want, because we have to deal with a lot of judgmental people, but we’ve always been in that position, so its nothing we cannot handle.’

olivierotoscani.com