Before the onslaught of provocative images that show up at your fingertip, we had the social awareness of Colors magazine. Founded in 1991 by controversial Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani (art director of the Benetton Group) and its American editor-in-chief Tibor Kalman, the gorgeous mag mixed social issues such as AIDS with shopping (think National Geographic-meets-Adbusters-meets-Vice) and published six multi-language editions to reach a global audience. Seeing decades of these shocking images -- an issue on race examined flesh color, underwear differences, and sex organ size -- and radical design produced in this large-format tome cements the magazine's reputation as a work of art.
Colors: A Book About a Magazine About the Rest of the World available now from Damiani/Fabrica.
