NON STNDRD occupies two adjacent spaces on the National Building Arts Center campus that formerly served as steel casting sand bunkers – and now serving as experimental exhibition venues. Exhibiting artists are encouraged to explore an interplay between raw architecture and immediate landscape, contextualized by the history and function of the facility and the surrounding place, geography and terrain. NON STNDRD embraces artistic experimentation and critical inquiry and shines a light on the non-standard and exploratory nature of contemporary art by presenting it in a space that radically and intentionally breaks from traditional exhibition venues.
The National Building Arts Center occupies a sprawling campus that formerly functioned as the Sterling Steel Casting Company, and today serves as a unique, emergent study center housing the nation’s largest and most diversified collection of building artifacts, supported with broad holdings in architecture and allied arts.
Funding for NON STNDRD was provided by The Luminary’s (St. Louis) Futures Fund Regranting Initiative from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.