Some consider him to be a ‘revolutionary’ who changed and broke the rules of both fashion and photography forever or as we know them to be in today’s society.
Others think of him as a poet who has crafted and formed a new version of what is considered to be beauty, via his unforgettable campaigns for Benetton.
The rest? They see him as an uncomfortable, irreverent, almost subversive character, who at 81 years of age continues to shock his well-wishers with his extreme and provocative, non-conformist, political yet never banal campaigns highlighting social issues.
That man is Oliviero Toscani, one of the world’s most famous photographers.
Today, this legendary lensman lives on his estate in Casale Marittimo, a few kilometres from Bolgheri, in Tuscany. A magical and isolated place, surrounded by 160 hectares of woods, vineyards, olive groves and arable land, where he produces excellent wine and extra virgin olive oil.
SM: Why did you choose to live in Tuscany?
OT: I came here for the first time when I was 20 years old. I was studying at art school. I liked to draw and thought I was the new Paul Klee. I fell in love with Tuscany right away. It is the real centre of the world, it is lush, has a fantastic climate and an incredible landscape.
In the 1970s, I bought a house here that was a bit hippie and I used to come here with friends. Then I met my wife and when we had to decide where to live (she lived in Paris,
I lived between London, Paris and New York), I told her: let’s move to where we usually go on holiday. And we came here to Maremma. Today I can say that I live in the most beautiful place in the world.
SM: Let’s start at the beginning. How did your connection with photography come about in the first instance?
OT: It started with my father. He was a photo reporter for the Italian national newspaper Corriere della Sera. I grew up surrounded by cameras and telephoto lenses. Photography for me was the most natural thing in the world.
Muhammad Ali
“I had visited him on his campus in Pennsylvania whilst he was training to face Foreman. It was 1974. He was the most incredible person I ever met. He called me Oli and I called him Ali”.
SM: What was your father like?
OT: He was a dissident tolerated by the fascist regime. Mussolini, who knew him well, summoned him one day and asked him: “Toscani, why do you never wear a black shirt?” “Black doesn’t suit me,” my father replied.
He was an experimenter. But we never worked together.
SM: Why?
OT: Because he took shots that others commissioned him to do. I am something else. I use photography like a writer uses a computer or a pen. I do not get complacent when taking my photographs.
I am the other way round from today’s photographers who boast about having a Leica and they believe that this is enough to be considered a great professional. For me it’s the exact opposite: the more Leicas you have, the more of a loser you are.
SM: Do you remember your first shot?
OT: Yes, I was six or seven years old and I photographed a little Bambi-like deer.
SM: You said that a true photographer is not an artist, but instead an author. Can you explain further?
OT: Photography is a socio-political means of expression, it’s something ethical. A photographer is an author because he analyses, criticises and then shares his point of view with others.
He creates a testimony – I’m a witness of my time. That is what a photographer is: a witness. That is what photography does: it’s storage space for the human memory.
Lou Reed
“At the time he was just one of many people who hung out at Warhol’s Factory. I liked him because he was intelligent. We discovered we were born the same week of 1942. That picture ended up on the cover of the Lou Reed ’s Live album. For that job, I made $10,000, whilst Lou only made $2,500”.
SM: Aside from the fact that your dad was a photographer, who are the other photographers who shaped your vision?
OT: Richard Avedon – particularly his series ‘The Americans’.
SM: In your house in Casale Marittimo, you created the Toscani Circus. Can you tell us what that’s all about?
OT: It’s a cultural centre where I organise workshops and talks across a range of subjects. We start with photography but then go elsewhere with it. Michele De Lucchi [Italian architect] came to stage a talk about architecture, and Marina Abramović on art…
SM: Do you consider fashion an art form?
OT: No, it has nothing to do with art. It is just a tool. I became a fashion photographer in the 1960s only because fashion was a means to tell a story of the evolution of our society at the time. I am the same age as Bob Dylan and the Beatles: I was fascinated by the changing times.
While at that time some photographers, like Ferdinando Scianna, spent their time portraying Holy Week and processions in Sicily, I went to London to photograph miniskirts. So who do you think was the best at talking about those times – me or them?
Andy Warhol
“This photo was part of a series commissioned by Polaroid, for the release of a new camera. I had asked Warhol to be the model. I had a special relationship with him. He was a Martian. He didn’t think like a human being, he was ahead of everyone else. It’s hard to explain. He had an exceptional capacity for analysis and criticism”.
SM: You have said that because of brands, today’s fashion has become a kind of burqa: if you don’t own that bag or those shoes you are excluded. Do you really think so? →
OT: Fashion doesn’t interest me. It’s the dumbest thing in the world. Whoever follows it is basically an imbecile. Just look at all the little girls who post their selfies and their clothes on social. In a few years no one will remember them.
SM: So while we are on the subject, what do you think about social media?
OT: It only serves to fuel consumption. It’s because of social media that kids today are all the same, all homogenized. They buy the same things, they get the same tattoos, they have the same lipstick colour, the same hairstyles, the same bodies. Personality no longer exists. Social media channels are the new mental concentration camps. Places where people enter voluntarily, without being deported.
SM: But social can also be a sounding board, a tool…
OT: Today there are thousands of photographers who think they are famous just because they have a blue tick on Instagram. But in reality nobody knows them, because they have never done anything important. There are no great photographers who come from social. Name one, just one... It’s the mechanism of social that makes everything mediocre.
SM: Your shots are world famous. Do you feel like a rock star?
OT: Not at all. These are things for mediocrities who need certifications. And I’m thinking above all of the generation from 40 to 60 year olds: the most boring ever. People who have not suffered, who have not invented anything, who have no ideologies. A generation devoured by ambition that only seeks fame and fortune.
Mick Jagger
“Here we were in Saint Tropez playing cards. It was the beginning of the 1970s. Mick is also a friend of mine. All these stars are my age, part of my generation. We shared ideals and evenings”.
SM: Do people stop you in the street?
OT: Some people do. Many are young and I’m glad about that. It’s quite strange because my work is predominantly known among people in their 40s and 50s.
SM: Have you ever used your name to gain advantage in life?
OT: My name doesn’t bring me any advantages at all. People seem to keep me at a distance because I always say what I think.
SM: What’s the first thing that comes to mind if I say 80s?
OT: A bit of vulgarity, euphoria and the very first taste of Berlusconi, the man who completely destroyed Italy.
SM: Can you explain?
OT: Berlusconi was the downfall of Italy, he is the man who made our country lose its dignity.
Before him Italy had many faults but it retained great dignity, even aesthetic dignity. After him everything became vulgar.
I hated his media channels and I could never stand him – not even now that he’s dead.
Maneskin
”They came to my studio before they were famous. I had them come to my studio for the shoot but I forced them to pose naked all the time, without their rock star attire”.
SM: Berlusconi has also been synonymous with television/media. What do you watch on TV today?
OT: There is no particular channel or programme, for me it is all about zapping. Every two seconds I change the channel. Click, click, click… My wife says I am crazy, yet I am convinced that by watching TV in this way I discover the state of health of contemporary society.
There are dead people everywhere, then winking Barbie dolls, demented talk shows… That’s how I understand where the world is going.
SM: You and Paolo Roversi are some of the most famous Italian photographers abroad. Why do you think that is?
OT: Because we realised that we could not remain entrenched in Italy. Paolo Roversi was one of the few. All the others, beyond the border of Chiasso, nobody knows them. At 23, I was in America.
SM: I know you didn’t like Roversi’s portrait of Kate Middleton, why?
OT: From that shot you can see the evidence of conditioning that Paolo underwent during the shoot. You can clearly see how much pressure he was under from the Princess’s staff, who by the way I don’t like very much.
Portraits of this kind are always complicated but Paolo is polite, good-natured, diplomatic…
SM: Is it true that you were a womaniser? Legend has it that you and David Bailey used to put crosses on the models you conquered…
OT: Yes, it’s true. Let’s just say that David and I were very compatible. And back then we were unrivalled within the fashion world, where the vast majority of the others were gay. We were rare.
“I took this self-portrait especially for the Vasarian Corridor. It now hangs on the walls of the suspended passage-way that connects the Uffizi Gallery to the Pitti Palace in Florence”
“This is just one of my last self portraits…”
SM: Is there a mistake you can’t avoid making?
OT: Yes, I should learn to be more tolerant, but I just can’t.
SM: What kind of father were you?
OT: The best I could have been. I have been an honest and sincere father, I have never pretended to be what I was not.
SM: And what kind of husband have you been?
OT: I have been a reliable man. Always helpful, even if in my own way and with my own worldviews.
SM: In which house would you never want your pictures to end up?
OT: I don’t care. I don’t discriminate. In fact, I really hope they end up in the homes of the wrong people, so at least they can learn something.
SM: Do you have many friends?
OT: I don’t know what you mean by friends. I have many people who love me.
SM: Where do you go when you die?
OT: I don’t care, we’ll see…
SM: You turned 80 last year. Have you taken stock of your life?
OT: Well, I have lived everywhere, I have met some fantastic people, I speak five languages. At 81, I can say that I am the luckiest and most privileged man I have ever met in my life.
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