Blue Tattoo is a complex installation of mechanical and physical parts. The centerpiece is a small mechanized bull engraved with a heart on its shoulder. A blue light illuminates the heart, while the bull paws the ground with its leg. The bull is connected to a series of three teapots on hotplates, which are filled with water and attached to rubber tubing that shoots steam into the bull’s nostrils.
The “blue tattoo” of the pulsing, animated bull is projected—via video camera focused on the bull’s shoulder—onto an oversized man’s work glove, which was fabricated in collaboration with FWM. Suspended at a distance from the bull and close to a bank of red lights, the glove is altered from its coarse suede and heavy canvas prototype, and made instead from a combination of soft suede and delicate dotted Swiss fabric. The text, “Mo-mo-mo-mother” and “Si-sis-siss-sister,” is printed on the glove, a reference to dialogue from the film Chinatown.
This playful and enigmatic installation is characteristic of Oppenheim’s history as an inventor of his own artistic tableaux. There is a relentless quality to the beating of the bull’s heart—and Oppenheim is clearly interested in the symbols of the heart beyond mere biology.