BOOKS
Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini (text) Oliviero Toscani (photogr.)
United Colors: The Benetton Campaigns.
London, Scriptum Editions, 2002.
€ 60.00
Bound, cloth with original dustjacket, 159pp., 25x31cm., richly illustr. in col., in very good condition. ISBN: 9781902686226.
United Colors: The Benetton Campaigns collects the most influential and controversial advertising imagery created for United Colors of Benetton from 1984 to 2000. Featuring the photography and campaigns produced under Oliviero Toscani?s creative direction, this volume traces the evolution of a radical visual language that fused fashion, politics and social commentary. With essays and captions by Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini, the book offers background on the concepts, the public reactions and the cultural impact of campaigns that challenged the boundaries of commercial advertising. Lavishly illustrated and chronologically arranged, United Colors is an essential record for students of advertising, photography and cultural history. This book documents the Benetton advertising campaigns that became internationally famous (and often controversial) under art director Oliviero Toscani. It presents campaign images and reproductions, organized mostly chronologically from the mid 1980s through about 2000, with explanatory text and essays by Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini. The volume explains the conceptual aims behind the ads (multiculturalism, social and political issues, shock and public debate), gives production/context notes for key images (for example AIDS awareness, war, racism and other provocative topics), and situates Benetton?s work within late 20th-century advertising and visual culture. The book is illustrated throughout with campaign photographs and includes editorial commentary that helps readers understand both the creative intent and the controversies provoked.