Harold Pinter: On beginning and ending

Paco Pomet, “Storytelling,” 2008, oil on Linen, 110 x 130 cms.

Larissa Bates, “Untitled (After Nicolas Poussin),” 2008, acryla gouache and ink on canvas, 8 by 10 inches.

Here’s an excerpt from Harold Pinter‘s 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech that Monya Rowe includes in the press release for “Our Beginnings Never Know Our Ends,” a group show featuring Larissa Bates, Joe Pflieger, Paco Pomet, Mark Schubert and Frances Trombly. �In the play that became ‘The Homecoming‘ I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), ‘Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don’t you buy a dog? You’re a dog cook. Honest. You think you’re cooking for a lot of dogs.’ So since B calls A ‘Dad’ it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn’t know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.”

“Our Beginnings Never Know Our Ends: Larissa Bates, Joe Pflieger, Paco Pomet, Mark Schubert and Frances Trombly,” Monya Rowe, New York, NY. September 10 � October 31. Opening reception: Thursday, September 10, 6 – 8 PM