Jonathan Monaghan

Created by artist

Bitforms Gallery

Jonathan Monaghan is a contemporary artist whose practice explores the transformative effects of technology and consumer culture. His multidisciplinary works combine ancient mythologies, commercial architecture, and corporate logos to create a surreal and mythical world that blurs the boundaries between the natural and the artificial. uncovering subconscious anxieties associated with technology and consumerism.

His work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. and Market Gallery in Glasgow. Group exhibitions include The Palais de Tokyo in Paris, New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival, Lehman College Art Gallery in New York, Ars Electronica, and Postmasters Gallery in New York. His work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue Italia. His work sits in numerous public and private collections including The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Microsoft Art Collection.

Monaghan received his BFA from the New York Institute of Technology in 2008 and his MFA from the University of Maryland in 2011. He is represented by bitforms gallery in New York and 22,48m2 in Paris.

Mothership is a video installation that journeys through absurd and whimsical environments, drawing broadly on references to ancient mythology, science fiction, architecture and corporate branding. The culminating film is a mystical critique on power, wealth and the role of technology in the digital age.

Mothership was created largely during the artist residency Culturia in Berlin in the summer of 2013. During this residency Jonathan met curator Masha McConaghy, who was in Berlin working with the Node Center for Curatorial Studies, and her husband Trent McConaghy. They floated the idea to interface with the Bitcoin blockchain to secure and transfer digital artworks by using the blockchain as a public ledger, tracking provenance and ownership of artwork. Jonathan thought the concept was an important and unique way to make digital art more secure and collectible.

By the end of August 2013, Trent had developed a prototype, eventually called Keidom. A limited of edition of 3, 1AP, Mothership was the first artwork registered and authenticated through the “Keidom SPOOL” (Secure, Public, Online Ownership Ledger) making it the first digital artwork recorded on a decentralized ledger, an important predecessor for modern NFTs.

Mothership premiered at the Moving Image Art Fair in London on October 17th, 2013. It was presented by Andrea Pollan with her Washington D.C. gallery, Curator’s Office. The Keidom ID and key, generated through the Bitcoin blockchain, was an integral part of the collector’s package. 

Curator’s Office sold edition 1 of Mothership to a collector named Jonathan O’Hara through the art advisor Jennfier Vorbach in December 2013. At a later point, the collector asked to sell the work back and now edition 1 of Mothership is owned by Andrea Pollan.

Keidom was further developed and the name was changed to ascribe.io. Several artists used ascribe to secure and transfer ownership of their digital artworks. Ascribe was eventually shuttered and attempts are being made to recover the data and technology.