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...

a tree of aluminum...

from the danish design magazine mobilia, a 1970 one page article on the swiss pavilion at expo '70 in japan with nice small grainy images...

"switzerland: a tree of aluminum in front of a finely-detailed, precisely formed exhibition hall. the 32,000 lamps on the branches were turned on in 10 stages. cooled air flowed in waves from the tree, making the plaza a very popular place to rest - electronic music was projected downwards from the tree - when the lamps were lit the music changed to another program and broadcast outwards from the loudspeakers at the treetop. design willi walter."

of course, one can't help but see connections between the photos of folks resting beneath this tree of lights and olafur eliasson's weather project done at the tate a few years ago. i'm much more interested in what the electronic music sounded like!