Research on Oliviero Toscani

Oliviero Toscani

''When you look at the book, you don't know if I'm a fashion photographer, an art photographer, an advertising photographer, a reporter -- I am a photographer. I'm simply a witness of my time,' Oliviero Toscani says of his new photo book, More Than Fifty Years of Magnificent Failures. Indeed, the release is a document of Toscani's truly dynamic eye. For more than five decades, his campaigns for brands like United Colors of Benetton and Esprit -- and his editorial images for glossies including Elle, Vogue, and the earliest issues of i-D -- have powerfully pushed forward the very possibilities of fashion and advertising images.'

His work for the United Colours of Benetton

'Toscani created the brand's iconic advertising campaigns, which fused poignant social commentary with simple and striking visuals. His subjects ranged from dying AIDS patients and death row inmates to political prisoners and religious clergy members of all sexual orientations and ethnicities.

'Toscani's images catapulted Benetton to stratospheric new highs, but his images were often met with threats of censorship, lawsuits, and boycotts. To this day, they're still predicated with terms like 'controversial' or 'shocking,' a term with which Toscani heartedly disagrees. 'I didn't do any shocking pictures. Where are the shocking pictures? There are some stupid people who say they're shocking but I don't think about those people,' he says. The accurate descriptor? Provocative. 'When I go to a movie, I want to be provoked. When I read a book, I want to be provoked. I want to be provoked intelligently, I want to restart my thinking, I want to ignite the engine,' he says. 'Provocation belongs to art, so if I provoke something, I'm very happy."

Benetton: A History of Shocking Ad Campaigns [PICTURES]