Julieth+Jaramillo-Rodriguez

Julieth Jaramillo-Rodriguez Professor Victoria Kingsley ENGL101. Section 5 Assignment: Artist’s Profile October 11, 2009 Oliviero Toscani: Using Photographs as Eye-openers  Everywhere you go, does not matter if is to the end of the world, media will follow you. Even if you try to escape it, it will hunt you down. Newspapers, magazines, television, radio, anything really is useful to try and push things down your throat, until you finally give up and buy their products. We are immersed in media in our world and this media sees us only as potential customers. People everywhere in the world, especially the younger generation, tend to let media influence their decision-making until it gets to the point where media actually ends up making the decisions for them. That actually sounds more complicated than it really is. Trying to figure out what to eat, what to wear, what’s trendy, basing it all on the simple fact of what would people think of you. Of course this does not apply to every single person in the world, but it is safe to generalize that the majority of the world population relies on media.  Media can become a problem, sometimes it can even become a severe problem. An example of that is how media influences young people, especially young girls on how they should look. Media sets a very specific example of what is beautiful. Since a while back now we have noticed how media is influencing young girls to look skinny and beautiful just like the girls in the magazines. It is showing how ugly it is to even find one floppy piece of skin on your body. Yet, can anyone really be perfect? Of course not, every person as much as they have their qualities, they also have their flaws. In magazines and on TV, these beautiful women are covered with makeup and airbrushing. And the funny thing is, that even though mostly everyone is aware of this fact, they still obsess on becoming perfect, just like the girls they see on the magazines.  Media can also be helpful though, it can even be good sometimes. Media can open the eyes of the people to the rest of the world out there, and keep people somehow connected. A wonderful way to express media is through photography. The beauty of photography is that an individual can analyze a photograph and have his/her own specific opinion about it. It can be interpreted in infinite ways. It has no specific language; anyone can admire and be impacted by an image in their own special way.  A very controversial yet amazing photographer is Oliviero Toscani. Born in 1942, this Italian photographer grew up being anything but ordinary. Growing up, Toscani never just settled for anything, “ I always try to strip away and strip away until I arrive at what is essential,” he explains on an interview with Time magazine posted online. Toscani started his career as a photographer working for a clothing company called United Colors of Benetton, whose photographs were anything but usual. Their photographs were trying to show just what their name meant “united colors.” They wanted to display this, by showing the unison of the different kinds of people, meaning homosexuals, blacks, whites, Hispanics. They wanted to show that their clothing brand could be used by anyone.  Being a part of this company, is what really got Toscani into doing all this “controversial” photographs, in fact he was pretty much at the peak of his career. What really launched his controversy around the world though, was his famous photograph of a man dying of AIDS surrounded by his grieving family (See Fig.1). It is often said that it is controversial because it compares itself to the Pieta. The Pieta or pity is a sculpture by Michel Angelo showing the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus (See Fig.2). This, some people thought was going over the borderline.     <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Fig.1. __Man dying of AIDS__. (May 1990). Fig.2. __The Pieta.__ (1499). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Another one and perhaps the most controversial of Toscani’s famous photograph is the one of Isabelle Caro (See Fig.3). Just looking at the photograph is not enough to really engulf the seriousness of it. Once you look you can’t wait to find out more, more of why this woman let herself get to the point of looking like this. It is photographs like this that open the eyes of the world, and that is exactly what Toscani was trying to do with this piece. To really understand this photograph though, once must see its background, see the life of the woman behind this horrifying image. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> It does not take a genius to know this photograph deals with a woman dealing with some kind of eating disorder, in this case anorexia. Isabelle Caro is a twenty-seven year old French model, who weighs around 68 pounds and has been living with anorexia since she was thirteen. In an interview with Sheila MacVicar from CBS News, Caro explains she became an anorexic after her father left her mother and her mother fell into a great depression. After that Caro only wanted to make her mother happy, and she knew her mother would be happy with a thin beautiful daughter, so much she obsessed with the idea and slowly but surely became an anorexic. But in September 2007 after falling into a coma, Caro decided it was time to fight the disease back and joined Oliviero Toscani, who was then working in an ad campaign against anorexia for a company called Nolita. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Although this campaign was targeted towards an audience of Italian young women in an effort to warn them of the dangers of anorexia, the ad reached the rest of the world. Toscani hoped to not only helped Italian young women, but also all the young women everywhere else in the world. Toscani captured a pair of beautiful blue eyes, and made them look scared, and really made them look the part of an awareness ad. He made her look simple yet eccentric; he did not use much make-up on her but really by shooting her naked, made everyone see the reality of how unattractive this woman looked to anyone’s eye. “ <span style="color: #020c19; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Toscani’s aim was ‘to use that naked body to show everyone the reality of this illness, caused in most cases by the stereotypes imposed by the world of fashion”, Flash&Partners said in a statement. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; msotabcount: 1;"> <span style="color: #020c19; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 200%; mso-no-proof: yes;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Fig. 3. __Isabelle Caro__ (September 2007). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Toscani’s other work has prodded into more taboo areas such as racism, homosexuality, corporal punishment, war and religion. He has really let us into a world that many are afraid to talk about, the real world. He has dragged us and opened our eyes to what is really out there. That is his very purpose, he explains on an interview with Time magazine posted online “ Sure, you want to get people's attention. This is communication," he says. "But I still can't understand why people are shocked by something that obviously exists. It's like in a family that always avoids talking about its real problems." Toscani always wanted to be aware of what was really waiting for him outside the doors of his house, he knew that not everything was rainbows and butterflies like in the books he read as a child. Toscani is really an artist to be thanked, because even though he was criticized and will continue to be criticized whether good or bad forever, he never took a step back, instead he used his most powerful tool, his camera, to open our doors to the outside and beyond. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Works Cited = Israely, Jeff. October 19, 2007. “ Oliviero Toscani: Never Far From Controversy”   = =<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1673663,00.html = = <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Lyman, Eric J. August 2001. “The True Colors of Oliviero Toscani”  = =<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <http://www.ericjlyman.com/adageglobal.html> = = <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wikipedia. April 2007. < <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliviero_Toscani>  = = <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wikipedia. < <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo)>  =