Off standart
Year
2025
Medium
Digital artwork, printed on paper,
210 x 297 mm
Exhibition
Marking Section 13’s anniversary, members of a group founded to unite “non-conventional forms” were invited to respond to the current condition through an emphatically conventional format: a typed A4 page. This focus on fitting ideas into a standard frame also reflects broader developments in contemporary art in recent decades, including locally.
Gallery
The Union of Bulgarian Artists (UBA), Sofia, Bulgaria
Off Standart is a minimalist digital piece that appropriates the visual language of system errors and content moderation to challenge the notion of standardisation, control, and legibility.
On an almost blank A4 page, the viewer encounters a familiar yet jarring message:
This content cannot be previewed. It exceeded permitted frameworks.
The work resists spectacle, image, or explanation. Instead, it offers a refusal – quiet, glitchy, and deliberate. The intentional misspelling of the title (“Standart” instead of “Standard”) becomes part of the concept: a visual disruption, a coded resistance against conformity.
Within the context of Section 13 – a platform known for experimentation, critical positioning, and conceptual inquiry – Off Standard aligns as a formal and symbolic deviation. It questions who defines the framework, what is deemed previewable, and whether art must always be visible to be valid.
This is not a preview.
This is a position.
