First complete show for photo provocateur Oliviero Toscani in Zurich
Published: Thursday, Apr 11th 2024, 12:20
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Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani has caused scandals with his campaigns for the fashion brand United Colors of Benetton. The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich is now dedicating the world's first complete exhibition to the bustling photographer under the title "Oliviero Toscani: Photography and Provocation".
Oliviero Toscani regularly succeeded in provocation: the Italian photographer sometimes took pictures of the anorexic model Isabelle Caro, sometimes he portrayed prisoners on US death row for the fashion house Benetton. "The themes are still as relevant today as they were back then," said Christian Brändle, Director of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. Topics such as racism, gender and migration.
The Zurich museum is dedicating the first complete exhibition to the photographer. Until now, Toscani had kept his early works under lock and key, according to Brändle. During the preparations for the exhibition, Toscani arrived late one day: "I went down into his archive and saw what he had stashed away," says Brändle.
The museum director was able to convince the photographer. Now, photographs from his student years in Zurich hang on the walls of the museum. They are photomontages and photographic juxtapositions that, according to Brändle, already point to Toscani's later play with provocation.
Zurich was followed by New York
After training at the Zurich School of Applied Arts, Toscani moved to New York. The exhibition is the first to show photographs that the photographer took of the club scene in the Big Apple. "Here you can also see his interest in diversity and freely lived sexuality," says Brändle. A theme that appears again and again in Toscani's work. In the USA, the photographer met the artist Andy Warhol and had celebrities such as Mick Jagger in front of his lens.
Countless photos by Toscani are laid out on a committee table in the Museum für Gestaltung. All from the photographer's archive. Photographs that were not used. Visitors can rummage through the prints.
And the photographs that the Italian photographer took for the fashion company Benetton are hanging there. "Toscani believes that clever provocation is the basis for any in-depth discussion," said Brändle. And so the photographer has also shown that corporate communication can do more than just sell a sweater - namely to bring issues into society.
©Keystone/SDA
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