Painting I / Display and the Exhibition as Part of the Work
Practice question · Select all that apply

Why is the centre-line convention a decision rather than a law? Select every statement that is true of hanging heights.

Hints
  1. Three describe a convention and what it achieves; one claims it comes from the objects.
  2. Ask what the height is measured from and why that matters.
Show the answer
  • A. The figure is chosen for an average standing eye and differs between institutions
  • B. Hanging a mixed group to a common centre line makes a wall read as a sequence
  • C. Institutions commonly place the centre of the work between 145 and 155 centimetres
Why

The fourth invents an authority the convention does not have. It comes from an assumed standing adult eye, which is a decision about an audience rather than a fact about pictures, and it is why exhibitions for children, or for a seated audience, legitimately hang lower and are not doing it wrongly.

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