Oliviero Toscani, David Kirsby’s final moments. Photograph, 1990

United Colors of Benetton ventured into controversial territory in 1991 with the publication of an HIV campaign: a photographic expose of the reality of the illness.

The photo of HIV activist David Kirby was taken in his room in the Ohio State University Hospital in May 1990, with his father, sister and niece at his bedside.  The photograph was taken by Oliviero Toscani and included in LIFE magazine in November 1990, and won the 1991 World Press Photo Award.

Photography can sometimes be cruel and tragic, yet it is often one of the few truly effective means to transmit a message. This is the case of Benetton advertising campaign, signed by Oliviero Toscani, which relies on the tragic figure of a terminally ill man with HIV in delirium, using the iconic reference of the Dead Christ by Andrea Mantegna.

The construction of the image is almost the mirror image of the painting. With it, the Benetton exceeds the limits established for the social role of advertising. For the first time the pain of a men rather than happiness is used in advertising.
Here this is the poetry that moves behind the photographs by Oliviero Toscani, and open a gate or perhaps simply a way to open people’s eyes to the various faces of reality, changing the point of view and showing the downside.

The pain on display as the unveiling of a reality and his reference to the pictorial tradition of horror but also to that of the fifteenth century Italian sublime. Through esthetic if a single image we confronted with an image that becomes the mirror of our thoughts.