Advertising Is His Medium

Oliviero Toscani sprung into notoriety in the early 80’s under the patronage of Italian fashion brand Benetton, a partnership that ran from 1982 – 2000. Quickly acquiring a reputation for arrogance and shock, Toscani was the creative mind behind the controversial advertising campaigns that turned Benetton into a household name.

Since the late 1890’s art movements have been based on the idea of breaking down what is widely believed to be “normal,” distorting reality by taking things out of context. For example, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” – an inverted urinal with R. Mutt signed on the side. “Fountain” encourages many to challenge their beliefs about what art is; it is art because the artist said so. In Contemporary art this confrontation of ideals and beliefs has progressed into a broader range of art-making. Toscani uses fashion photography and the international recognition of fashion labels in advertising to promote discussion about global issues. His appeal is in his multilayered ambiguity; in the fact that he can promote these issues and challenge us into having our own opinions, and at the same time promoting a fashion label through the controversy. Toscani explains:

“Our advertising is the Rorschach test of what you bring to the image. You can see a news photo of the fighting in Sarajevo and it’s in context; it conforms to your expectations. Shocking violence in the news is normal. But when you take the same photo out of the news and put a Benetton logo on it, people pause and reflect on their position on the problem.” Asked if he believes advertising is art, Toscani responds “Sometimes advertising is art… But art is always advertising.” In his view, the Renaissance was an enormous advertising campaign for the Vatican; the Christian cross is a logo for a cause, not a symbol of faith. By removing the religious context of the Cross, we could turn this icon into anything that we want; for example, a logo for new car – we could say “the masterfully designed steering means there is no challenge on sharp corners or straight lines, the “t” shape represents a cross roads on a highway.” By removing the intent that this symbol is used in and altering it to suit our needs, we have completely reworked the context that it is viewed in.

This makes it interesting discussing Toscani’s work with Benetton – was he using these controversial images to promote the companies name? Or was he using the companies name to promote global issues that greatly concerned him?

Toscani’s first campaign for Benetton in 1982 introduced him as an innovative advertiser. Using teddy bears to model children’s clothing, the world recognized him for his creative and unconventional perspective. In 1984, he followed the teddy bears up with the “All the Colors of the World” campaign, images that promoted an ideal racial harmony and world peace. The image, a racially diverse group of teenagers wearing Benetton clothing engaging in a variety of playful acts, was meant to represent the labels world market by having the youths wear the multi-colored Benetton clothing range. The image highlighted Toscani’s building interest in the multiculturalism prevalent at the time and introduced a new level of political discussion in art and advertising.

In 1990, Benetton and Toscani launched the official “United Colors of Benetton” campaign, the name coined from the previous “All the Colors of the World” images. This campaign launched a ten year span of symbolic, poignant and controversial ads that Toscani became renowned for. The images, however striking, were unrelated to any actual products being sold by the company and dealt with topics like racism, homophobia and war. An unwashed baby with umbilical cord still attached, a deathbed scene of AIDS activist David Kirby, a black stallion mounting a white mare, a priest kissing a nun, the bloodied uniform of a dead Bosnian soldier, refugees clawing for food at a ships cargo net, and the exposed beating hearts of three different races were among the images. The green Benetton logo served as the only text. To further encourage the discussions raised by the Benetton campaigns, Toscani and American graphic designer Tibo Kalman created Colors, a magazine owned by Benetton (but editorially independent of the label) with the tagline “a magazine about the rest of the world.”

Colors quickly developed a reputation similar to Toscani’s; while praised for its multilingual, quarterly editions, photo-essays and feature pieces it was perhaps better known for its sardonic point of view and shock value. Issue 4, released in Spring 1994, covered the topic of racism and created international uproar by running images of Queen Elizabeth II doctored to look like a black woman, film maker Spike Lee as a white man and Pope John Paul II as Asian. Around the same time as Colors, Toscani invented, founded and directed Fabrica, an International Centre for Research in the Arts of Modern Communication, again under the patronage of Benetton. Housed in a strikingly simple building designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando (commissioned directly by Toscani) in Treviso, Italy, it is a unique institution led by an international team granted a one-year scholarship to work on the projects they submit. The premise behind Fabrica is to marry culture to industry, using communications which do not rely on the usual forms of advertising. Projects in design, music, cinema, photography, publishing and the Internet have produced editorial projects, books, television programs and exhibitions, and gained numerous honours and awards.

“Don’t you want to ask about the ‘Death Row’ campaign?”

In 2000, Benetton’s most memorable campaign was launched – “We on Death Row.” It was aimed at drawing attention to the controversy surrounding the use of capital punishment in the U.S. where the support for the death penalty is as popular as opposition is to it in Italy. The campaign featured portraits of convicted killers on Death Row stamped with the words “Sentenced to Death” or “We, on Death Row” along with the Benetton logo. While once again being a beautifully delivered campaign, the images emotive and powerful, it stirred more controversy then ever before. The state of Missouri sued Toscani and Benetton for misrepresenting themselves while interviewing four death row inmates in that state. Protests from consumers and from the families of the inmates’ victims prompted leading retailers such as Sears and Roebuck & Co. to drop the Benetton line.

The Missouri lawsuit was settled when Benetton agreed to write letters of apology to the families whose relatives were murdered by the inmates in the ads. The company also donated $50,000 to the Missouri Crime Victims Compensation Fund. The official line from the company is that it stands by the campaign but regrets causing pain to the families involved.

Three months after the controversy hit its peak, Toscani resigned and Benetton made no effort to convince him to change his mind. His work solidified the brand as one of the world’s best selling and renowned fashion labels. When Tosacni resigned annual sales were more than 20 times greater than when he arrived, and sales slumped for the first time in two decades.

After leaving Benetton, Toscani failed to latch on to any major work. The minor pieces he had completed gained little to no attention. During this time he wrote for several small release magazines and lectured in many art circles and schools.

September 2007 saw Toscani explode back into action with a new partnership with fashion label Nolita. Together they launched a scathing attack at the “size 0” trend during the Milan Fashion Week with giant billboards displaying a naked anorexic woman named Isabelle Caro. The campaign is signature Toscani – Caro weighs 31kg and has psoriasis like rashes covering the majority of her body. Supported by Valentino and Dolce and Gabbana, the images have drawn outrage from the ABA, the Italian association against anorexia, bulimia and obesity, who declare it to be damaging and potentially encouraging to people who would wish to emulate Caro.

The campaign was launched amid a reformation of the weight standards of models during Fashion Week. Models now have to carry a certificate that says their actual Body Mass Index, and if it is under 18 (18 – 25 is considered the healthy weight range), then you can’t model at Milan Fashion Week. Likewise, if you’re under 16 you can’t model. When initially discussed, fashion houses and modelling agencies began teaching skinny models to walk “fatter” – more swivelling of the hips and wider steps makes the hips, waist and thighs look larger.

Toscani spoke out saying that his aim was to use Caro’s naked body to show everyone the reality of the illness. He pin-points the stereotypes imposed by the fashion world as one of the leading contributors to the large quantities of men and women who suffer from a variety of eating disorders. Caro was quoted in Vanity Fair saying: “I hid myself and covered myself up for too long. Now I want to show myself without fear even though I know my body is repugnant.”

Former colleagues at Benetton have commented that Toscani enjoys making people uncomfortable – both in person and in his work. Toscani likens himself to Francis Bacon and Goya in that their art made people uncomfortable, and that in doing so, the controversy and discussions have made us all better for it. Toscani’s work, his images as well as his editorial pieces and lectures, have encouraged us to discuss our positions on topics, and by doing so he has challenged our understanding of situations, and our beliefs. Though however shocking his images may be in content, it is hard to deny the striking quality and masterful presentation. It also hard to ignore them. As Toscani himself has said in the past, you can’t deny that the images worked to promote the companies – though the question still remains of the relevance of the images to the campaigns they are attached to. But that’s the point right?

“Art represents the edge and of course the edge can make people feel uncomfortable. But it’s also a matter of the person you are talking to: personally, I think the rain is uncomfortable. But try making that argument to a fish.” – Olivero Toscani

Lillian Grace Captain Zen MotherFucker of the High Seas of Rum

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