After the jerk sentence on the Morandi Bridge, now everyone is trying to dump Oliviero Toscani: is that right?

This time, as everyone knows, the well-known photographer Oliviero Toscani uttered an inadmissible sentence, when during the radio program Un giorno da pecora last February 3, when interviewed by host Giorgio Lauro about his encounter with “sardines,” he asked “who cares if a bridge falls down?” The unfortunate question received bipartisan criticism, and Toscani’s words were also stymied by the Committee for the Victims of the Morandi Bridge, as well as Autostrade per l’Italia’s CEO Roberto Tomasi. Toscani tried, on Twitter, to explain his point of view, stating that the phrase was taken out of context: “I’m sorry,” he wrote, “that extrapolated and confused words can make people think madness like that I don’t care about the Bridge. Only malice can instrumentalize such a thing. To me as to everyone, that tragedy interests and outrages, but it is absurd for certain journalists to hold me accountable.” Afterwards, at the microphones of Radio Capital, the photographer said that he was “destroyed humanly” for what happened, and reiterated that by the phrase he meant that in the encounter with the sardines something else had been talked about (the same interpretation given by his son Rocco who, interviewed by the program La Zanzara, reported that his father had said a “crap,” “like a jerk,” but also that the meaning of the phrase had been misrepresented).

Apologies and explanations, however, were not enough, and the Toscani case went further: the first to react was the Benetton group, which broke with the photographer, after explaining in a note that it “took note of the impossibility of continuing the collaboration relationship” with Toscani. The Ligurian League, on the other hand, issued a statement, signed by deputies Edoardo Rixi, Flavio Di Muro, Sara Foscolo, and Lorenzo Vivian, demanding that Toscani no longer be hosted on Rai programs and that he no longer be invited to events in Liguria. But it doesn’t end there: Toscani in fact has some ongoing projects, one in Parma for the Italian Capital of Culture 2020 and one in Pinerolo. In Parma he was supposed to hold some photography workshops, the first of which was set for the week of February 13-20. Now, however, the project has slipped to a date to be announced, and the official reason is a “change in the organizational structure of the project,” although we read that new dates will be announced as soon as possible. Again there had been controversy, with the PD and the League calling for Toscani’s participation in the initiative to be withdrawn.

There was also controversy in Pinerolo, where an exhibition by the photographer is underway: the mayor of the Piedmontese city, Luca Salvai, asked the organizers (the Cosso Foundation) to close it early (“I believe that a city cannot host an exhibition by Oliviero Toscani after these statements,” he wrote in a note. “Tomorrow I will send a formal letter to the Cosso Foundation asking them to suspend the exhibition: art, as well as culture, music, sports, doing business, cannot ignore that social responsibility that each one of us, in our daily doing, is called to pursue.”) The middle school in San Secondo di Pinerolo also canceled a planned visit: two of the Morandi Bridge victims had been studying at the institute, the school principal explained. The Cosso Foundation, however, while declaring itself shocked by Toscani’s words, chose to let the exhibition go on because culture must go on: “the opportunity to learn about an artist’s production,” the Foundation explained, “always represents a valid attempt to investigate one’s own time, develop the tools necessary to attribute meanings and generate a moment of reflection.”

Many have therefore questioned whether it is right to censure Toscani for his statement, and many, while condemning the photographer’s statement, have spoken out against the appropriateness of shutting down his projects. Parma Mayor Federico Pizzarotti and Councillor Michele Guerra said Toscani “said a very wrong sentence but perhaps he was also instrumentalized. He realized he made a mistake but we know that contemporary communication is complex and often induces people to say things they would not like to say,” and they then let it be known that the project for Parma will go ahead. Also coming to Toscani’s defense was MP Michele Anzaldi of Italia Viva: “but really,” he wondered, “is there anyone who can doubt or even question the civic and moral culture of an international artist and a personality of the caliber of Oliviero Toscani, who has devoted his entire career to defending civil rights and fighting racism, hatred, and discrimination? Are a few words enough to erase the history of one of the most well-known Italian artists in the world?” Commenting instead on the Pinerolo affair, journalist Gabriele Ferraris of Corriere della Sera: “It happens that Toscani, in front of a Radio1 microphone, shoots off yet another piece of nonsense. But this time it’s too big. It’s not a mince, it’s an insult to the dead. Or, even worse, it’s a dick joke, and a poorly executed one at that. [...] I understand popular outrage, but the individual and free thinking also have some rights, if it is true that communism is dead. The dictatorship of the majority (or the noisy minority) is not democracy. Certain practices I, personally, would gladly leave to other heavens, and other regimes. What is different is personal conscience. Toscani’s exhibition is open, but no one is obliged to visit it [...]. The city may well express its outrage by boycotting the serial shooter’s exhibition. And respect, in the case with dignified disapproval, those who keep it open or visit it.” And Toscani continues to be discussed.

After the jerk sentence on the Morandi Bridge, now everyone is trying to dump Oliviero Toscani: is that right?

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