The present exhibition is the second chapter in Jed Gregorio’s new body of work “Frat”, originally a draft for a book of poetry, developed from 2017 to 2019. In the wake of its upended publication, “Frat” has transmogrified into a proposition for a sprawling network of artistic inquiries that include works in installation, photography, painting, sound, and sculpture in various media.

“Frat — Act 2: Monochrome One” directly follows “Frat — Act 1: Kristo Disco”, the latter a series of works developed in conjunction with a group exhibition with a curatorial prompt initiating focus on the concept and practice of magic. Gregorio describes “Kristo Disco” as “conceptually organized around the lore of the alchemist’s studio”, which the artist postures as “a mythological setting that houses the uniquely human enterprise of endeavoring to attain immortality.” Gregorio specifically fixates on what he describes as “the relationship between the popular notion of magical acts with the commitment to physical endurance”, and “questions surrounding the transhumanist dream of a substrate-free consciousness and a bodiless existence.” Presenting an installation that has components of photography, painting, sculpture, sound, and smoke, Gregorio says, “You can consider the work as containing vignettes or impressions of hypotheses on how it might be achieved—the resurrection of the dead.”

The second act of “Frat” simultaneously picks up from, diverges, and builds on the hypotheses of the first. “Frat — Act 2: Monochrome One”, Gregorio’s inaugural solo presentation in a white cube space, gathers works in a variety of media, which include fluids, light, and works on canvas. An accompanying publication, “Notes Toward an Introduction”, featuring passages adapted from the artist’s journals, may be accessed on Altro Mondo’s website, altromondo.ph.

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JED GREGORIO (b. 1990) is a Filipino artist based in Manila, Philippines. His artistic practice encompasses photography, filmmaking, installation, and performance. His first solo exhibition “New Frontiers in the Evolution of the Blood of the Immortal Poets” in 2019 was held in First United, originally the Edificio Luis Perez Samanillo, a pre-war Art Deco building in Escolta, Manila, recognized as an important cultural property by the National Historical Commission. The exhibition is at the heart of a quasi-narrative, world-building project that has unfolded over multiple other exhibitions, screenings, and printed matter, both predating and succeeding the Escolta show. The last juncture in the “Immortal Poets” project is the multi-iterative piece titled “Godhood”, recently shown in the Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan. In an artist’s statement, Gregorio described the body of work as “engaging narratives of generational angst, masculinity, and religious faith as loci of contentious mythologies.”

Gregorio’s current project-in-progress “Frat” was introduced in the tail-end of 2020, with “Act 1: Kristo Disco” and “Act 2: Monochrome One” presented in succession in context-specific premises. Similarly, “Frat” is envisioned as a long-term project spanning multiple platforms, exhibitions, and diffusions.

Gregorio graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Major in Communication from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2011.