The Toledo Federation of Art Societies claims that the upcoming art show, TFAS100+5 is a continuation of the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, yet it is at best a bastardization of the show, to be sure.
TFAS100+5 = fraud
The Toledo Federation of Art Societies is invoking the tradition of the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, that of the show that they killed that was held at the Toledo Museum of Art for 95 years. They are doing the new show to increase their membership. You have to be a Federation member to enter this “reboot” show! You can only enter the show “with independent membership [of TFAS] and a [mandatory listing, making yourself a forced member in the] TFAS artist directory”.
The show and all of its requirements are for the federation’s own corporatey benefit, to feed their own corporatey agendas, and not for the benefit of the individual artists of Northwest Ohio. Our Northwest Ohio art and artists are secondary to the federation’s agenda.
By entering the show, you have to join their club, and you must agree to be listed on their online artist directory – free endorsements for them to build up their broken Toledo Federation of Art Societies. The TFAS deceived us, deceived our community. They were traitors to the tradition of the long-standing, oldest museum-hosted regional show in the country, the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition. The past presidents of TFAS and their friends got themselves a big payoff for killing the show, rewards of which culminated in 2014. The TFAS president at the time defended it all by saying that’s how it is – that’s the world we live in. I remember the condescending program the TFAS had concurrently to this last TAA show with all of the insiders in it — teaching the poor artists who didn’t get in how to be professional artists.
Buyer beware!
The reboot regional show is not inclusive and it does not promote equality.
Having to be a member to be in the regional art show is discriminatory.
If you have to be a member of the _ _ _ _ party (you fill in the blanks) to be in the show, that’s discrimination.
It is not a continuation of the TAA show — the TFAS killed the TAA show and we can never forget it! Eight years ago, in 2014, they put their own federation presidents into what became the last Toledo Area Artists Exhibition.
The “federation” wants to use your work to promote their agenda — it’s a requirement!
Another requirement — your work has to be for sale! You may not enter the show without your work being for sale! You must donate 30% of the proceedings — it must be donated — 10% to the Federation and 20% to a very specific University of Toledo temporary art department fund.
Preeminent Toledo artists avoided this show when the TFAS came up with it two years ago. The top Toledo artists were courted individually to partake in the new show, but most of them said no thanks.
The Toledo Federation of Art Societies has fragmented the Toledo art community.
The TFAS100+5 is a membership drive. The audacity, after the TFAS killed the 95-year old art museum show so flamboyantly in 2014, but not before they rewarded themselves.
The TFAS100+5 show is a fraud.
The TFAS should be lobbying the Toledo Museum of Art to give us our previous, prestigious, 95-year old original show back. But the TFAS doesn’t want to do that. The museum is a member, could that be it? Instead they attempt to resuscitate their moldy, corrupt organization that killed our show in 2014. They do this today by forcing artists to be a member and be listed on their online database, as if that is a normal requirement to enter a mediocre so-called regional show for all regional artists that they call a biennale. The TFAS serves their own agenda and hurts the Toledo art community by making the artists who simply submit to the so-called regional juried show become a Toledo Federation of Art Societies member. What for?
A sense of belonging – NOT
It is truly ironic that the Toledo Museum of Art’s five year plan set forth one year ago was to promote a sense of belonging — and one year into it, the museum has rediscovered its commitment to the community and seems to be finding its roots — yet the artists and art groups lassoed by the TFAS don’t bother to seize the obvious opportunity at this moment to lobby for the return of the local art community’s great Toledo Area Artists Exhibition. The Toledo Black Artist Coalition spoke up for Black Lives Matter in 2020, and they were heard loud and clear by the Toledo Museum of Art. Look at the changes the museum has made as a result! Black artists of Toledo are highly admirable for their courageous activism. As for the rest of the art community, they have lost their vision. They are at risk of getting suckered in by the corporatey self-serving Toledo Federation of Art Societies (based on the two 19th-century single-sex male and female art “societies,” plus the art museum — rotten leftovers of the spoiled 95-year tradition of the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art, killed in 2014.)
What is going on with the historic art collection of the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition Purchase Awards?
The Federation was asked by the Toledo Museum of Art to move the collection from the museum’s storage about 20 years ago. So they moved it into a closet at the Toledo School for the Arts, in the charge of the Toledo public school system.
Perhaps the Federation could give the historical collection to the Toledo History Museum, as the collection shows how Toledo was once such a vibrant art community. The collection is an albatross on the Federation, as well as a perversion, considering their role in demise of the TAA show. The TAA purchase awards should belong to the people.