Disco Beast

2016. Video (color, sound), media player, screen or projector, 18 min., seamless loop. Edition of 3, 1AP. Music by Furniteur.
Disco Beast follows a psychedelic unicorn wandering through empty commercial spaces, such as an abandoned shopping mall and a luxury hotel lobby. The work references medieval iconography, such as the well known tapestries of a unicorn in captivity, to build a new mythology about modern confinement by technology and materialism. The unicorn as a symbol of otherworldliness in discord with banal, corporate spaces in the piece elicits anxieties about globalization and consumerism. A series of sculptures related to the video installation were also created.
Photo of video installation Disco Beast, 2016, by Jonathan Monaghan in the Palais de Tokyo, Paris in 2018

installation view from CHILDHOOD: Another banana day for the dream-fish, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2018

Still from Disco Beast by Jonathan Monaghan, showing a pink unicorn on an escalator in a outdoor mall. Still from Disco Beast by Jonathan Monaghan, showing curved Beaux art architecture against a sunset sky. Still from Disco Beast by Jonathan Monaghan, showing a hovering plastic coffee lid, sunset sky. Still from Disco Beast by Jonathan Monaghan, showing a floating unicorn in a warm-toned hotel lobby. Photo of  museum visitors viewing a large-scale, video installation titled Disco Beast by artist Jonathan Monaghan, projected in a dim gallery.

installation view from #cute. Islands of Happiness?, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Germany, 2020