It is no coincidence that Milan, a city with strong ties to basketball, has been chosen as the third stage of Foot Locker Europe’s “Raise the Game” project, which aims to support and celebrate local communities through basketball and its culture and, more specifically, through the redevelopment of neighbourhood courts.
So, after Paris and Barcelona, the time has come for the Lombard capital, which today sees the inauguration of the new basketball court in Viale Lazio 25.
When Foot Locker Europe had to select a local artist to breathe new life into the basketball court, it was no coincidence that the choice fell on Davide Barco, an artist and illustrator who has made basketball and sport in general the subject of his work. 

For this project in particular, Davide Barco thought about the role that basketball plays in Milan, a city whose soul and history has always been enclosed in the centre, but which is also expanding its boundaries. The artist was lucky enough to work on one of the few courts in a fairly central area, just a few minutes from Porta Romana, and combine basketball with art, drawing inspiration from the magnificent decorations on the marble floors of the central nave of the Duomo. 

“I am excited about this project. To find the inspiration I thought ‘How wonderful and crazy can it be to play basketball in the cathedral of Milan?’ The court is inspired by the white marble tiles of the cathedral’s central nave, with a touch of red and blue to recall the colours of the NBA. So we will have the cathedral of basketball in Milan, with a floor directly inspired by the history of the city” – Davide Barco

For this project, Foot Locker involved basketball players, youth teams and fans, but also the DaMove Crew association, which through basketball seeks to trigger social change and create communities united by a passion for sport.  

See below the photos of the new court designed by Davide Barco and visit the project website to find out more! 

Saint Laurent Rive Droite paid tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat with a capsule collection inspired by the wonderful work and immortal legacy of the New York artist. 

As is customary for Anthony Vaccarello, Creative Director of the French fashion house, he has created, in addition to a hoodie, two T-shirts, a sleeveless jacket for the occasion a series of accessories such as a tote bag, top and cross-body bag, a backpack, two different iPhone covers, three books dedicated to Basquiat, two skimboards and a set of three collectible skateboards – which transcend their function to become works of art – characterized by Basquiat’s works.

In addition to the simple capsule collection, Saint Laurent Rive Droite boutiques in Paris and Los Angeles will display a silkscreen print, 18 original lithographs by the artist, many drawings, ceramic plates that belonged to Andy Warhorl and other objects. 

The Saint Laurent Rive Droite x Jean-Michel Basquiat capsule collection is already available online.

If there was a meeting point between illustration and poetry, that is where we would meet Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber. 

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber are two Winnipeg artists, born in 1974 and 1975 respectively, who met at the University of Manitoba, Canada. It was during their studies that they founded the Royal Art Lodge, a sort of collective formed by young artists and officially disbanded in 2008. However, Michael and Niel have never been separated and still create small collaborative works of art that are successful both in the gallery world – their work can be found in the permanent collections of museums such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Centro De Arte Caja De Burgos in Spain, Takashi Murakami in Tokyo and many others – and on social media. Their Instagram profile @m_d_n_f_ is followed by 345,000 people who find themselves in their work. 

Their production consists of small works made with acrylic paint on wood and characterised by the combination of image and text. Sometimes we see only a coloured background with an animal, a flower or a house, in practice subjects that could mean anything if they were not always accompanied by short phrases that give meaning to the image. 

Sometimes sad and melancholic, other times sarcastic and bordering on black humour, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber make illustrations not just for everyone, but for every kind of mood. We’ve selected just a few, but follow their Instagram profile to make sure you don’t miss any. 

We all dream of, or have, a place of refuge. Our safe place where we are sure to find the calm and tranquillity that we often fail to maintain. Last year during the lockdown, the impossibility of reaching our safe place weighed heavily, but we saw how these restrictions stimulated the creativity of artists, from Marita Madio’s digital project “Quètu”, which recreated an island, to candles that smell of office and coffee break.
They are now joined by Rosa Sawyers, a young girl who graduated in communication design last summer, but who has found animation to be the right medium to express herself. 

In contrast to graphic design, Rosa’s approach to animation was almost self-taught: during the long months she spent indoors, the young designer enjoyed creating short videos that showed her full potential. 

As the months went by, Rosa Sawyers kept practising and posted each of her works on Instagram, where her followers began to appreciate them more and more. 

The clips are just a few seconds long and have a romantic and relaxing feel to them: if their creation has distracted Rosa from what was going on in the world, their enjoyment is no less so. The designer creates small worlds in which everything is so calm that it also has a calming effect on the viewer. A cat behind a window, the reflection of a house in a pond, the sun slowly setting, these are the scenarios we see. 

We have selected just a few, but follow Rosa on Instagram for your daily pill of tranquillity.