A Journey beyond Images

The photographer of light, color, creativity, always off the beaten track, who even in illness followed his path of denunciation: Oliviero Toscani died, at the age of 82, at the hospital in Cecina, where he was admitted on January 10 for the worsening of his condition. Oliviero Toscani died, the photographer was 82 years old. The family’s announcement: “He has embarked on his next journey.” For two years – as he revealed in a shocking interview with Corriere della Sera on August 28 – he had suffered from amyloidosis: “In one year, I lost 40 kilos. Even wine, I can no longer drink it: the taste is altered by the drugs,” he said, explaining that he was following an experimental treatment and that he did not fear death. “As long as it doesn’t hurt.” And then I have lived too much and too well, I am very spoiled. I never had a boss, a salary, I was always free.” He had also spoken of the intention to contact his “friend Cappato” to choose assisted suicide in Switzerland. In Zurich, he went at the end of September to visit his Photography and Provocation exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung, during one of his last public appearances. Until the end, Toscani carried the force of ideas, that of a man who revolutionized the world of photography, scandalizing and provoking debate. From the jeans of ‘Chi mi ama mi segua’ to the kiss between a priest and a nun, from the faces of those condemned to death to the body of a woman consumed by anorexia, all his campaigns have left their mark. In a sixty-year career, he has worked all over the world and for all the most important magazines. Thousands of portraits, millions of images. However, he did not want to be remembered for anything in particular, but “for the whole, for the commitment. It’s not an image that makes history, it’s an ethical, aesthetic, political choice to make with your work.” A journey condensed in the book Ne ho fatte di tutti i colori, released in 2022 for La Nave di Teseo, and focused on the world that he would have wanted and that he had imagined since the days of Fabrica with Benetton and Colors, the magazine that anticipated engagement on many current issues, from the environment to migrants to racism. In his notebook from John Lennon to Andy Warhol, from Muhammad Ali to Lou Reed, to the desire to immortalize Jannik Sinner. For fashion from Donna Jordan to Claudia Schiffer, to Monica Bellucci, but also Carmelo Bene and Federico Fellini. Born in Milan on February 28, 1942, Toscani published his first photo in Corriere at the age of 14: it is the face of Rachele Mussolini, immortalized in Predappio during the Duce’s burial in the family tomb. After graduating in photography at the University of the Arts in Zurich, he started in the world of advertising with the campaign for the Algida cornetto. His photos appear in Elle, Vogue, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, but he also takes photos for famous fashion houses such as Valentino, Chanel, Fiorucci, Esprit and Prénatal. The turning point, in 1982, with Benetton: the sweaters were the pretext for Toscani to highlight social themes such as equality, the mafia, the fight against homophobia, the fight against AIDS or the death penalty. In 1991, he launched the magazine Colors, three years later here is Fabrica, an international center for the arts and research of modern communication, whose headquarters is designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. In 2000, the partnership with the Benetton group ended, following a controversial campaign using real photos of death row prisoners in the United States. Next will be fashion campaigns for the RaRe brand, focused on homophobia, collaborations with the Red Cross, with the Higher Institute of Health, with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and those of social commitment on security, violence against women, anorexia. Precisely on this theme, in 2007, Toscani produced a shocking campaign for the Nolita brand, which divided the public and critics, putting at the center the French model and actress Isabelle Caro, 31 kilos and 1.64 meters tall. In 2007, he gave life to the Razza Umana project, a gallery of portraits of various humanities, a sort of census of all the somatic and social characteristics of the human race. From 2018 to 2020, he returned with Benetton, relaunching the themes of integration, but he was then fired for his statements on the collapse of the Morandi bridge (“But who cares if a bridge collapses? “). Multi-awarded – from the Grand Prix of Advertising (1990) to the Golden Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival (1996), the appointment of honorary academician of the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence ( 2010) to the career prize of the German Art director’s club (2019), honorary president of Nessuno Tocchi Caino, Toscani was a candidate for the Chamber with the Radicals in 1996 for the Marco Pannella List and in 2006 for the Rose in the Fist. He caused a sensation with his comment on the disappearance of the Cavalier (“luckily Berlusconi is dead”) and has never hidden his critical positions towards the Meloni government, reiterated in one of his last television interviews, in September in Piazzapulita, the Corrado Formigli show on La7. His secret? “I look for new faces, people with enthusiasm in their eyes, I demand that they not wear makeup, beauty is something else,” he said on the occasion of his 80th birthday. And the future? “Who knows, I think of the cosmos, the universe, the stars. When we understand all this, that will be the future.”