ROMA. The photographer of light, of color, of creativity, always outside the box, who now even in illness seeks his way of denunciation. Oliver Toscani He left everyone speechless when he told in an interview with Evening Courier to have an incurable disease, it’s called amyloidosis which was diagnosed at the Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, and he doesn’t know how much time he has left. “Of course I’m not interested in living like this. I have to call my friend Cappato,” he says, “I’ve known him since he was a boy. Every now and then I feel like it. I told him once and he asked me if I was stupid.” He threatens to go to Switzerland, where there is now a large exhibition celebrating him at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich where he studied immediately after high school, at the Kunstgewerbeschule.
“After reading his interview, Marco Cappato sent him a message with a hug. However, I don’t think he was called for an act of civil disobedience”, explains Filomena Gallo, lawyer and national secretary of theLuca Coscioni Association. «It is appreciable that he wanted to make his situation known», explains Gallo, and «he could find the possibility of an end of life in Italy if he respects certain conditions indicated by the Consulta and the regulations in force». But the doctor who is treating him, the cardiologist Michele Emdina professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, says that «he is a true warrior against the disease» and that his «is a tiring pathology for every patient, it can be cured and he is curing himself with great strength».
The warrior of many battles, who at 80 still felt 50 years younger, stopped at the house in Casale Marittimo in the province of Pisa. «In one year I lost 40 kilos. I can’t even drink wine anymore: the taste is altered by the medicines”, and adds: “it’s a new situation that needs to be addressed – explaining that he is undergoing an experimental treatment -. The beauty is that you are no longer interested in homeland, family and property, the ruin of man”.
His friends, like Michele Anzaldi, emphasize: «Even when he apparently seems to want to pull in his oars, he throws down a challenge, forces you to think even if you weren’t inclined to do so», and launches an appeal: «If I were a public service manager, who thanks to the license fee doesn’t have to chase advertising, I would do anything to have him, to give him a space in which to capitalize on his communicative power, his ideas». The power of the ideas of a man who revolutionized the world of photography, scandalized and sparked discussion. From the jeans of «Whoever loves me, follow me» to the kiss between a priest and a nun, from the faces of those condemned to death to the body of a woman consumed by anorexia, all his campaigns have left their mark. In sixty years of career, Toscani – who turned 82 on February 28 – has worked all over the world and for all the most important magazines. Thousands of portraits, millions of images. Yet he doesn’t want to be remembered for any one in particular but “for the whole, for the commitment. It’s not an image that makes your story, it’s an ethical, aesthetic, political choice to make with your work”. In 2022, the book was published that already says a lot about his life from the title, “Ne ho fatte di tutti i colori” (La Nave di Teseo). He has never abandoned his gaze on the world he would like, the one he has dragged us to imagine since the days of Fabrica with the Benettons and Colors, the magazine that anticipated the commitment to many current issues today, from the environment to migrants, racism. In his notebook of memories there is everything, from John Lennon to Andy Warhol, from Muhammad Ali to Lou Reed. “What gives me pleasure now? I read, I watch Inter and certain English teams on TV. And then there’s Sinner, who gives me relief in life. Now everyone is jealous and envious of him: typical of Italians. He will soon learn who his true friends are and who isn’t”.
2024-08-29 18:57:30