“I still don’t listen to people over 30!”

Progressive Post: In your career and as an artist, you’ve dared to highlight subjects that are not much in the public eye, like HIV, homosexuality, sex, illness…Would you say that we’re witnessing a regression and that a taboo is back on certain subjects?

Oliviero Toscani: No. It’s a mistake to think it was better before. Those who say that, don’t under- stand anything. An artist’s work is to highlight problems, not to seek consensus. It’s about testifying to the human condition. All art that counts is always an image of the human condition. If it is only a question of aesthetics, composition or colour, we remain in the mediocre. The beauty of human tragedy is missing. Michelangelo’s Pietà represents a mother holding her dead son in her arms: that’s the worst thing a human being can live!

PP: As you constantly travel the world, what do you think the new generation is?

OT: The new generation is nice and kind, well-mannered, a little soft, they never get angry… At that age, I was a rebel!

PP: In your opinion, why don’t they get angry?

OT: Because young people have no real reason to revolt.

We don’t devote enough time to imagination!

PP: Because they already have everything?

OT: They don’t have everything, but they have enough to be nice and to be docile. When I was twenty years old, I only listened to people who were under thirty. At thirty, I thought we were already old.

PP: You seem suspicious of old age. And yet you were born in 1942?

OT: Yes, but I still don’t listen to people over thirty! I listen to people who are under thirty and who have woken up. Because there are some!

PP: But there aren’t many of them.

OT: It doesn’t matter, it’s not the number that counts. Quality doesn’t need quantity. They’re very interesting people, and this time they’re not nice and kind.

PP: What makes them interesting to you?

OT: They’re not sure of themselves, but they want something. This doubt is important. We’re constantly looking for security in all areas. But you can only be sure of one thing: of dying. Security kills. It takes away the strength, it sinks in. There is no creativity with security. To be creative, you mustn’t be afraid of being afraid!