He changed the history of photography and revolutionized the advertising communication system. Two more than enough reasons to consider Oliviero Toscani one of the eminent figures of our time. He does not like to define himself as an artist, his profession is that of a photographer, but we should understand what the term art really means: if it is a question of fracture, rupture, invention, innovation then Toscani is certainly an artist, indeed a great artist. For the first time in Pietrasanta, Flora Bigai contemporary art offers not an anthology but a collection, just as the greats of rock used when they wanted to retrace some fundamental steps of their career on their records.

Born in Milan in 1942, son of an artist (his father Fedele was a photojournalist for the "Corriere della Sera" and he was responsible for the legendary shots in Piazzale Loreto and the portrait of Indro Montanelli while he is typing): the exhibition begins in the early 1970s, when Oliviero Toscani was a young photographer who took incisive and ingenious portraits in black and white, in "low fidelity" yet with a strong sense of reality. For a certain period he frequented Andy Warhol's Factory, trying to ferret out a shy and reserved person, much more at ease behind the camera than in front of it. Toscani gives a different, even normalised, homely image of the Pop Art guru. Also Patti Smith, emerging priestess of punk, Lou Reed in black leather version (and this photo will end up on the cover of the live album of the former Velvet Underground), Muhammad Alì, the legendary boxer that Oliviero loved so much that he gave his name to one of his daughters. In those same years Toscani photographed the artists in their studio: Man Ray, in a rather enigmatic pose, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. In Italy he took, among others, a beautiful portrait of Carmelo Bene.

The transition to advertising photos is demonstrated by the legendary image of 1973, when Toscani "invented" the slogan "whoever loves me follow me" for the new Jesus Jeans, which caused a lot of discussion at the time, and which also pleased Pier Paolo Pasolini who wrote about it on the front page on “Corriere della sera”. The meeting with Luciano Benetton was decisive in Oliviero Toscani's career. Together they focus on an advertising strategy never seen before: it is not a question of conveying a product, but a style, a language, through images that perfectly represent the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time. We talk about racism, inclusion, religion, sexuality, politics through photographs that have become legendary, posted on city walls, published in magazines, and have become an integral part of the collective imagination. The color enters forcefully, the background is white, the frontal shot and the shot is indelible, unforgettable, as only  with great works of art may happen.

In his autobiography, Ne ho fatti di tutti i colori published two years ago by La Nave di Teseo, Oliviero defines himself as a situationist, and perhaps this is really the case. Also specialized in portraits, with the long cycle Human Race, he photographed the mutations of our times through the skin of people, here on display are two of the pop stars of the present, the mocking Maurizio Cattelan caught in the act of yet another escape and the Maneskin, a global rock phenomenon.

Thanks to Archivio Toscani, Susanna Cristanti, Nicolas Ballario.

Saturday 12 October at 6.30pm