Roland Brener

A Short Twist- Autobiography- 1997

Born as Roland Byron Reichman I became Roland Baron Brener. Reichman gave way to Brener when my mother remarried and wanted Jasper and me, her two sons, to have the same name as her own. Byron became Baron the first time I applied for a passport and, concerned that trouble would occur if I pointed out the clerical error, I accepted Baron.

One evening, at the age of seven, I said goodbye to our home on the coast . My mother packed us into a car and drove inland. Our father to be, aged thirty nine, left his mother and set out to meet us halfway and escort us to our new home. Approaching this midnight rendezvous he crashed and was seriously injured. We moved into our new house without him and he joined us when he was released from the hospital some months later.

My mother’s new husband seemed a terrifying creature from another world. Occasionally Leo would read to me at bedtime and, if I closed my eyes, his voice became the empty roar of staved barrels careening towards me as I waited, trapped at the bottom. I invented escapes.

Consciousness and Art – notes from 1985

At Xmas I visited my friend Charley in Los Angeles. Charley always takes me to good places, such as Forest Lawn Cemetery to see the talking sculptures. Thousands of the dead stacked vertically, Muzak piped from all the bushes, Michelangelo’s David there beneath the blue California sky where, a voice tells us, Michelangelo would surely have liked to see him. Only in this case the sky is not blue, but yellow from smog.

The Three Houses of Digital – 1997

I was drawing an interior view of a house on my computer. I applied distortion filter Bloat to my drawing and the house blew out from the centre…

As a child I had a book called The Fatipuffs and the Thiniffers.  Fatipuffs were jolly and very obese. They liked to eat a lot, lay around and party.

Thiniffers were very tall and always wore black. They rushed around a lot and were always working….

“Poor robot” – notes 1987

For several years I have been making sculptures that move. When I first started using elements that barked, walked, talked or jumped around, the work received a mixed response from the art world. The implication was that I couldn’t possibly be serious…

Writing under construction

Further writing, including lectures, notes, letters, & transcripts will be added.