Articles by Anya Firestone

Anya Firestone is an art theorist and leading expert on the strategy and history of art x brand collaborations. Bringing a unique intellectual lens to critique contemporary collaborations, Firestone uses her expertise in philosophy, cultural studies, and art history to explain how brands are changing art history as we know it.

Firestone’s below selection of works have been published by Highsnobiety Magazine, GOAT/Greatest, and Abrams.

 

AnyaFi.jpg

UNDER THE INFLUENCE:

Art in the Age of Brand Collaborations

While artists can produce almost anything in the name of “creative license”, brands must jump through licensing hoops to legally reproduce art on their products. Using an art theoretical lens, I approach the question: if a brand appropriates art without breaking a law, can they still break a legacy?

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 19 F/W | 2019

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 19 F/W | 2019


unnamed-3.jpg

LOOK MOMA! NO HANDS:

The Irony of the Artist’s Assistant

In today’s material world where
hired helpers make high-art reach higher-prices, how might we understand the value of a “work” of art upon learning that its namesake’s creator might not have even worked on it during the creative process? When it comes to defining the responsibilities between the artist and his assistants, where do we, quite literally, draw the line?

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 15 F/W| 2017

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 15 F/W| 2017


Find-the-Ghost.jpg

DAMAGED GOODS:

The Draw of the {High-Brand x Street Artist}

Collaboration

As graffiti tags mark up handbags and ball-gowns, the liaison between luxury labels and street artists marks a critical shift in both fashion and art history. Firestone uses an art-theoretical lens to analyze how a runaway on the runway may paradoxically resurrect, or else bury alive, the heritage of both high and low cultures.

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 14 | S/S 2016

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 14 | S/S 2016


lf.jpg

DECK THE WALLS:

The Rise of the {Skateboard x Artist} Collaboration

As street culture and high art magnetize towards one another exponentially, the [skateboard × art] collaboration signifies their acute meeting point in the 21st century. Firestone takes an in-depth cultural studies approach to rethink what the resulting object stands for, on behalf of contemporary branding and
the future of art itself.

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 13 | F/W 2016

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 13 | F/W 2016


Magritte-Opening-Ceremony-3.jpg

From High-Art to High-Tops:

The Impact of Brand x Art Collaborations

With artists’ names being dropped as often as (and with) sneaker drops, we cannot dismiss the phenomenon as an ephemeral hyper-trend, nor label it another Warholian revolution. For while we may hem and haw if we are convinced by the effects of these artsy collaborations in mainstream markets (Do they upgrade a brand? Do they undermine art?) Firestone explores why these liaisons, dangerous or otherwise, are not only influencing the retail world, but art history itself.

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 10 | S/S 2014

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 10 | S/S 2014


On Contemporary Artists

_IMG4368+Untitled+%28Prosperina+by+Dante+Gabriel+Rossetti%2C+1874%29%2C+2017%2C+acrylic+on+giclee%2C+24.625+x+10.875+inches.jpg

Michael De Feo: Flowers

Anya Firestone is a co-author of ‘Michael De Feo: Flowers’ by Abram’s Published. Firestone offers her art theoretical insight into the power of the artist’s contemporary series that use historical paintings to destroy, and then recuperate, the tradition of Pre-Raphaelite art.

Michael De Feo: Flowers | Abram’s Publishing  | 2019

Michael De Feo: Flowers | Abram’s Publishing | 2019

 
ReggiebyThomasWelch-MaisonFirestone.jpg

FIGURING ART OUT: Reginald Sylvester II

Anya Firestone visits the studio of artist Reginald Sylvester II “While looking back to the past, both art history’s and even his own, [Reggie} moves forward to create a provocative art of today. His aestheticization of issues concerning race, sexuality, or religion grace us like a contemporary oracle, met with an unprecedented level of self-awareness that most young creatives today lack.”

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 18 | S/S 2018

Highsnobiety Magazine | Issue 18 | S/S 2018