Cynical idealism

Nothing is more provocative and enduring than the ultimate, striking contradiction, and no one has mastered this art of affront as perfectly as Oliviero Toscani. Aids, war, the death penalty and sweaters: in his style-defining Benetton campaigns, the Milanese anti-icon staged the most irreconcilable of all communicative opposites, that between advertising and world improvement - itching or nausea - the same opportunistic anger as Toscani's visuals is also the source of his pamphlet "Advertising is a smiling carrion", first published in 1995. Nevertheless, this hate-filled homage to the evangelists of our economicized times is one of the most inspiring pieces of self-reflection that advertisers (themselves) have achieved in the nineties. "I scratch public opinion where it itches the most." We could certainly learn a thing or two from Toscani's unerring instincts in this respect today. And be it only that you contradict her from the bottom of your advertising heart.
> Advertising is a smiling carrion by Oliviero Toscani. Bollmann Verlag, Mannheim 1996. 196 pages, Fr. 28.40.
(oc)