Sightlines
What Is a Sightline?
A sightline is the hypothetical line your eye creates. In a stadium, it’s your view of the field; at a parade, it’s how clearly you catch the Drum Major and banners. While not uniquely tied to the arts, sightlines are powerful in arts education; they help us understand how we see our world, from our homes to the gallery.
“Sightlines are the first form of curatorial hospitality, how the space greets you before the art does.”
Striking an audience with awe is no small feat. If done thoughtfully, it can spark a lifelong relationship between a visitor and an institution. The politics of seeing, and the choices embedded in an exhibition’s production, are precisely what a curator balances when selecting and installing artworks.
How We Encounter an Exhibition
From first impressions to takeaways, visitors engage through multiple touchpoints:
Press releases and the leading image
Interviews with the artist
Gallery walkthroughs
Exhibition catalogs
Postcards and reproduced goods in the store
Each element must harmonize to create the show's visual vocabulary. That’s why terms like “dandyism” emerged around the Met’s Superfine exhibition and the Spring 2025 Costume Institute Gala; language, visuals, and experience had to move in sync.
“We don’t all read wall labels, yet the exhibition must still teach, guide, and stay consistent across every public-facing material.”
Photo: The Great Stair Hall, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Sightlines in a Digital Age
Think of the iconic Philadelphia Museum steps or the Louvre’s Daru Staircase. These aren’t just architectural features; they’re social landmarks that shape digital memory, documentation culture, and even wedding photography.
They create drama, anchor a visitor’s point of view, and become cultural shorthand for the institutions themselves.
Photo: The Daru Staircase and Winged Victory of Samothrace (1932)
“Sightlines have become both physical and digital focal points—bridges between the museum and everyday visual culture.”
Access as the First Sightline
The first barriers to seeing are often:
Language
Text and jargon
Affluence
Mobility and physical access
Height and sight distance
Institutions I’ve worked with often use the 56-inch center line, an accessibility standard that ensures seated visitors, wheelchair users, and children can engage with artworks without feeling dwarfed or excluded.
“A sightline determines who the museum is speaking to.”
I became sensitive to this by observing curators map out exhibitions: watching them shift a single piece and transform the entire gallery. Art converses with architecture, demands moments of pause, and sometimes seeks the quiet corners.
Behind the Installation Plan
When installing a show, curators must consider:
Safety and conservation
Visitor flow
Public and school tours
Donor and patron walkthroughs
Marketing needs
Photographic documentation
Emotional pacing
The Mona Lisa is given a large, open gallery for crowd management. Kara Walker’s wall-spanning silhouettes often require curved rooms or fully private spaces to respect scale, intimacy, and impact.
Case Study: Promise, Witness, Remembrance
Curated by Allison Glenn at the Speed Art Museum, Promise, Witness, Remembrance reflects on the life of Breonna Taylor, her killing in 2020, and the global protests that followed.
During a 2022 ICI talk, Glenn explained how she shaped the exhibition as a timeline of Breonna’s life, using the relationship between Breonna and her mother as the emotional entry point.
“Promise, Witness, Remembrance” at the Speed Art Museum, curated by Allison Glenn, reflects on the life of Breonna Taylor, her killing in 2020, and the year of protests that followed, in Louisville and around the world.
This curatorial approach centered on tenderness, memory, and humanity, situating public mourning within personal remembrance.
“In some exhibitions, sightlines work like cinematography, guiding your breath as much as your gaze.”
Strong works were placed with space to breathe, allowing transitions between archival materials, contemporary artworks, and rooms representing distinct emotional chapters.
Why Sightlines Matter
Sightlines are the curator’s invisible tool, an architectural language that can:
Slow you down
Direct your attention
Build anticipation
Offer rest
Prepare yourself for emotional weight
Help you understand a narrative arc
In large exhibitions, a sightline is often anchored by a single powerful piece that signals a shift in mood, theme, or story.
It is the line that teaches us how to see.
