Monday Portraits: 'Great Men' by Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas's series Great Men consists of sixteen ink portraits of men who were persecuted because they were suspected of being gay. You can see some of the portraits at Tate Modern in Dumas's retrospective Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden until May 10th.

Bureau de Change for Made.com

Made.com have opened a new showroom in Soho designed by London firm Bureau de Change. Architects/designers 
Billy Mavropoulos and Katerina Dionysopoulou have produced a remarkable space which plays on the contrast between the retailer's ephemeral virtual foundation and the solidity offered by a physical store. One way this contrast is addressed is in the interspersal of projections of Made's products among the showroom's actual pieces of furniture (below).

The pair have also expanded on the idea of the showroom as counterbalancing the innate intangibility of online retail by dedicating one wall to framed postcards behind which customers can access swatches of materials from Made's products. The showroom therefore allows Made.com to capitalise on all the benefits of online retailing while still offering its customers a tangible, tactile shopping experience. In this aspect Dionysopoulou and Mavropoulos can be understood as presenting an innovative design solution to a decidedly modern retail issue.

Monday Portrait: Noam Chomsky, 'Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?'

Michel Gondry's 2013 film 'Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?' uses Gondry's distinctive animation style to compliment and clarify recordings of his conversations with Noam Chomsky.

Adam Curtis's 'Bitter Lake'

Adam Curtis's extraordinary new film Bitter Lake re-examines the narrative of the war in Afghanistan. The film includes this exchange between a British art teacher and her class of Afghan students.

Bitter Lake is available to watch on BBC Iplayer until the 25th February.