better than an easter egg...

robert breer is one of my heroes, another thinker worker in a variety of mediums, two of which i am quite fond of - his films and his "floats". pictured above is documentation of breer's floats that were part of numerous exhibitions, but most importantly seen here as part of EAT's pepsi pavilion for expo 70 (some links: here, and here ).

below the images of expo 70, are a few pages from a 1970 brochure of breer's show at gallery bonino, which was made up of 93 miniature versions of breer's larger float sculpture.

the bottom pics are of one of my most coveted objects, one of breer's small floats, as sold by MOMA as some kind of toy or open "edition". i've never seen any other mention of the MOMA toy (unfortunately mine does not work!), but much about it can be gleaned from breer's short statement in the bonino catalog:

"in 1966, i made three small self-propelled dome shaped sculptures. these later served as models for the group of 6ft. high sculptures sent to expo '70 as part of the EAT (experiments in art and technology) project for pepsi co. inc. a large edition of a 4" high working scale model has been produced in japan and will be imported here.

in the meantime, i have taken 93 of these units and changed each one into the individual pieces that make up this exhibition."

clearly the moma float is one of the japanese imports breer spoke about as the toy was manufactured by bandai - the famous japanese model and toy manufacturer. the box lid mentions how the battery powered toy was supposed to move: "the float is mechanically engineered to move slowly in starting. it also turns direction upon bumping into another object - after a pause of several seconds."

the floats were most likely sold around 1970, but i have no idea how many were made...