Oliviero Toscani is a figure who teases, scandalises and surprises. He is a photographer, a creative director as well, although he can’t stand that definition. He is an innovator, an author of some of the most famous advertisements. Most of them are like pulling the devil’s tail or attacking the weaknesses of the society. Toscani became famous worldwide between 1982 and 2000 when he worked for the fashion brand Benetton, and his work helped the brand’s arising to the top. Which way? By breaking the pattern of the previously sweet commercials and bringing in reportage elements that show the harshness of real life. Let’s recall his shots

• of the girl suffering from anorexia,
• of a newborn baby seconds after birth with its umbilical cord uncut,
• of a human body labeled HIV positive,
• of the priest and nun of Milan Cathedral kissing under the slogan “Love, the hidden reason for life”.

Its advertisements are being sued, banned as violating human rights, anathematised by intellectuals and boycotted by brand stores. This does not stop him to continue and irritate and surprise. He has also worked for fashion brands like Valentino, Esprit and Chanel and magazines such as Elle, Vogue, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire and Stern.

In 1990 he created Colors magazine, which was published in 40 countries in three languages.

Colors magazine discussed every topic that the rest of the media didn’t want to talk about.

In 1993, Toscani founded the International Center of Arts and Studies of Modern Communication named “Factory”, where he publishes books, shoots for magazines, organizes exhibitions for the United Nations and makes TV shows for the Arte, MTV, Rai, Mediaset TV channels. He has also made films that have won awards at the Cannes and Venice film festivals. He has worked with interesting personalities such as Federico Fellini, Catherine Deneuve, Andy Warhol, Alice Cooper, Vivian Westwood, Muhammad Ali and Patti Smith.

In 2016 Oliviero Toscani was a guest of the FARA Advertising Festival, which was held for the first time in Plovdiv with a new format and a lecture day with the participation of global names from the communications business. That’s where we met.

In an interview with CNN, you say that in order to provoke luck, one must be ready to jump from the third floor. Which of your projects so far has been your most dangerous jump?

In my job, you jump from a different window every day. And you have to jump because if you survive, everyone will see it. They’ll shout that you’re lucky. And you’re just brave. The most important thing for me is to be free. I don’t want to be better than what I know I am. I know who I am and what I have to offer. I need freedom so I can test the limits of my intelligence, which is not as great as I would like, of my talent, also limited, of my will, and of my laziness… because I’m lazier than I like to be.

Do you count your work with American death row inmates for Benetton’s anti-death penalty campaign among your jumps? Benetton were condemned in the US for these photographs because it turned out that many of the prisoners were unaware that their photos were going to be used for advertising.

My work with the top criminal prisoners was no different from working with top models. There are all kinds of top models, top criminals, top fools, top journalists. I like the word “top.” And more importantly, the material became top. Is it right to kill a murderer? I don’t think it is. I become and remain friends with the people I work with. With prisoners, too. I’m a very loyal friend. I can be counted on. Next week I’m going to do a nice shoot for Italian magazine ELLE of short-legged models. Nice short legs with nice butts! Every month I do 8 or 10 pages for ELLE Italy with alternative beauty.

Why are you mad at beauty?

I’m not at all. It’s not real. It’s fake. All these models – they’re empty. Do you know how many people I’ve photographed? Many, hundreds of thousands. Some have resisted because there are religions that say when you photograph somebody, you steal their soul. When I heard that, I looked and I felt in people what you can’t touch.

It’s true – the most photographed ones, like the models you like so much, the more you photograph them, the emptier they become and the more you photograph them, the emptier you feel. There’s nothing left in them, they have nothing to say. Until you see a person you are photographing for the first time in his life. He will be really brilliant. All models look the same.

And what do you think the beauty is?

This – points out the slightly saggy butt of the waitress with her back to us in a cafe in Plovdiv. – Beauty is having personality, fire, intelligence, your own vibe, sparkle. Everyone has his own face, his own intelligence. Everybody is a potential artist within himself. Whoever is not happy with who he is, does not like himself and chooses to be a copy, gives himself away. You don’t believe you can say anything different. Whoever is afraid to trust themselves never wins.

You like being outrageous. Why do you want to provoke?

Don’t you like being provoked? To have an orgasm? To provoke is an action that leads to something. I can provoke peace, love, orgasm. What do I provoke? Maybe people’s thinking. Is it bad? I like it because the job of an artist is to provoke. I am what I am. I just don’t want to get bored like most people do. I hate the word “typical” the most. Every typical citizen of every typical country is a typical idiot.

You are talking like someone who is constantly angry.

There are enough things to be angry at – human injustice, which is everywhere, politics as social administration, stupidity, conformism. Television. I’m all for eliminating it, even though I used to do the TV show Camera Oscura. It may be very cool to do TV, but we’re not very good at watching it. It’s like a brainwasher. Watching it, people become stupid, they become negative, they have no opinion of their own. They allow others to tell them what to think. I don’t watch television. I don’t need to. I listen to the radio because it allows me to have an imagination, I read newspapers. The modern world and new technology leave no room for the imagination. Everyone is dependent on what they like and what they are connected to. Look around, we’re sitting here in this café, in this nice town, and what are the people at the next table doing? Everybody’s got their phone or they’re holding it on the table to stay in touch. And they’re in touch, but they’re not communicating with each other.

And how do you work as a team? You say freedom is your top priority.

I have a round table. Around it I gather the people I think are right for the project and I do it. With them. It’s very funny what happens in ad agencies. A commission comes in and the art director, the client and 20 other people rush into a room. The art director is trying with his own mediocrity to create something that appeals to everyone. To me, the concept of an art or creative director is nonsense.

Even God was not the director of creation, He did not rule it. And yet He is God.

Whereas the supergods in advertising create, direct creativity. Creativity is just a consequence. You cannot direct it. You don’t even know exactly what it is, because maybe the most creative moment in your life is the moment you felt most insecure. How to manage insecurity. No! They want to manage certainty. By controlling what you do, you just produce mediocrity.

How willing are you to compromise?

(Looks at me under his glasses.) The fact that I got out of bed and that I started the day is already a compromise. And that I’m giving an interview is also a compromise. Everything is a compromise. And to “poop” is a compromise. And I’ve done a lot of shits. I have a picture of a big turd. It’s something we all produce every day. And maybe every day produces a different one. And everybody’s are different. Nobody can copy anybody. The directors I was talking about can think of that. Things have to happen naturally.

How do you get inspired?

I don’t need it. I’m not looking for ideas. People who don’t have ideas are looking for ideas. Like art directors. And the creeps. They’re looking because they don’t have any. I’m a situation person. I work 26 hours. I always take two hours off the next day. I’m not an employee. I live my life working. I’m not one of those stupid men who goes on vacation to get black and take care of their complexion. I will die while I work.

One of your campaigns is about anorexia. Subsequently, the model Isabel Caro, who you photographed, died. What do you remember from your work together?

We didn’t have to say her name. I wanted to draw attention to anorexia, not the girl. Suddenly she became the focus of the campaign, and to me she was just a model. She was showing the reality. It wasn’t exaggerated. I could have chosen any other. For years I watched them sneak into my studio to pose – so ugly, so unsexy. And mostly from eastern countries. I even made a film that was in the Cannes Film Festival. I thought it was the right time to do it because the models are getting weaker and weaker. Sicker and sicker. Fashion design is inundated by homosexuals who don’t care about women. They only care about their clothes looking good. And clothes only look good on a non-existent body. And non-existent bodies don’t look beautiful. They look terrible!

I wanted to say to women, “Leave your beauty as it is!” And that was actually the cheapest campaign I’ve ever done – one poster in Milan, in Piazza San Babila, one in Piazza della Repubblica, six posters in Rome and that’s it. And the world media exploded. You need a lot of copy when the idea is weak. One picture is enough to get the world talking about you.

Your father was a photojournalist at the Corriere della Sera. What is the most valuable advice you received from him?

When I was in high school, I was very bored. Things were slow and boring. And instead of going to school, I went to the movies. I didn’t care at all about Napoleon and any wars. The smiles of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot fascinated me much more than the smile of Mona Lisa. When he found out what I was doing, my father reacted, “You’re right – I think the movies are a much better school.” He realized that I was learning more from the movies. You don’t need much brains for school. You read a textbook twice and you’ve learned what it says. People who are good at school are boring.

Did cinema get you into photography?

No. My father did. And then I had a great graphic design teacher at my school in Zurich.

Have you ever been afraid that you’ll make someone angry with your work?

Look, I’m not looking for consensus. I don’t care if people like my work or not. I’m not working to try to win the Golden Lion at Cannes. However, I have four. Hahaha. I don’t care about consensus at all. I don’t do things for anyone to like them. It’s never been a problem for me.

Tell me more about your family.

I’ve been married three times, have six children by my three wives and fourteen grandchildren. And I’m the only one of them all with an Italian passport. Everyone else is French, Norwegian, English, Swedish, German. I have travelled a lot and I travel a lot. One of my sons, Rocco, is also studying art, photography and design, but for the moment he works for my winecompany. I live on a farm. I produce red wines and they are very successful. My family name is like that because we have land in Tuscany.

What does a day look like for you?

I live on a farm in Tuscany, but I also have an apartment in Paris and in New York. In all three places my days are different. I’ve never had a studio. I have an office in the village, which is 4 km from my farm. So I go to the office. It is in the middle of the piazza (square) in the village. There is a shop, a bank, a bar and a post office. All the pensioners sit in the bar. They are my peers, but they have chosen to retire. I call them my creative team. I have one assistant in the office. Most times I answer the phone alone. And from there I organize the teams I need for the project I’m working on in Paris, New York or London. I get my stylist, makeup artist, hair stylist, videographer, digital technician and rent the studio in Paris, New York or Milan where I meet everyone and we produce what we need. Then I see my farmer, the guy in charge of the wines, and we talk about them, about sales. Then I also go to the stables. I talk to the people who work with the horses. Mine is the best training point for riding in Europe. The guy who works for me has just won the World Equestrian Championships in Geneva. OT horses (Oliviero Toscani), OT wines, OT glasses – he shows me his glasses – dark blue. That’s it. And this is the catalogue of the glasses with my advertising faces. I’m not paying them anything. It’s another thing to engage George Clooney. And I chose all the tyrants – Lenin, Castro, Bin Laden…

But in my own work I have no ownership. I don’t have a secretary, a carpetbagger, an accountant, or any bullshit and dumb stuff. I can call my studio “The No Bullshit and Stupid Studio.”