ABSTRACT
On an evening in 2007, in a small art gallery in inner-city Hobart, Tasmania, a crowd of about 20 visitors listened to a floor talk by Melbourne artist Deborah Williams. Her exhibition of etchings and engravings of dogs-silhouetted street dogs, dog shadows, lying dogs, lolling dogs, dark figures against grey or orange backgrounds-covered the walls of the gallery. the listeners stood in a ragged circle, framed by the relaxed, solitary, simply drawn subjects of the artworks, and heard talk of acquatint techniques, chemical hazards, and the artist’s experiences. the large windows of the converted nineteenth-century post office provided a good view of the twilight sky and of the black dog who suddenly appeared during the talk, insistently and unmistakably barking to be let in. this was nobody’s dog. That is, no human at the gallery that night was familiar with him. The curator let him in, the artist did not stop talking, and the dog entranced the listeners. He lay on the floor and listened too, head in the air, panting occasionally, and after a while he barked to the crowd. Did he want to leave? His body movements signalled he definitely did not-he was there to stay until the last visitor left and the gallery closed. it was an uncanny episode, an “animal moment.”
