Supported by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of the longstanding annual focus country cultural initiative, Australia now 2017, is a year-long program aimed at building the bilateral  relationship between Australia and Germany by sharing and celebrating Australian arts, culture, science and innovation.

UNSW Art & Design graduate, Del Kathryn Barton has curated an exhibition titled mad love presented at the Arndt Art Agency (A3) in Berlin as part of this major cultrual diplomacy initiative. 

mad love explores contemporary Australian art within the framework of Germany and Europe.  Barton has selected nine prominent Australian artists who create work both inspired by and about instinct, innate urges, and the human body.

On display are paintings, sculpture, mixed media, photography, and works on paper by Brook Andrew (UNSW Art & Design), Del Kathryn Barton (UNSW Art & Design), Pat Brassington (UNSW Art & Design), Dale Frank, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (UNSW Art & Design), Patricia Piccinini, Ben Quilty, and Paul Yore.

In describing the concept of the exhibition, Barton positions the “Body as pleasure. Body as machine. Body longing, always longing. Hungry body, filthy body. Body to run. Body to deny. Thinking body. Muscle Body. Body as instrument and song, as instinct towards life. Body light. Body dark. Evolutionary body, dinosaur body. Plastic body. Colour body. BODY as unmitigated surges of light and energy, just briefly, but oh, such, such love……… mad, mad love.”

The artists participating in mad love are of different generations, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, shaped by multiculturalism, women and men, heterosexual and queer. In a kaleidoscope-like manner, they not only illuminate Barton's theme of the body, but also relate to questions of our time, both private and political, with a perspective that is local as well as global.

A panel discussion titled Australian Contemporary Art: Now formed part of the public programs at the opening of mad love. Listen to David Elliott (British-born curator currently working in Berlin), Krist Gruijthuijsen (Director, Kunst-Werke, Berlin), Matthias Arndt (A3 founder), Del Kathryn Barton (mad love curator, artist, and UNSW Art & Design graduate), Alexie Glass-Kantor (Executive Director, Artspace Sydney and UNSW Art & Design graduate).

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