I have a quiet little Facebook page titled “Toledo Now.” Lately I’ve been posting about the doings of the Toledo art museum. My posts don’t go around that much, but I noticed a lot of activity on this post that I put up on November 16, going around many thousands of times! I saw that it had been shared on November 19 around 5pm (not by me) on a Facebook group called “Toledo Then and Now” which has 32,000 followers. This page states that it is run by AI. Apparently it stops the commenting after a period of time or activity, and when I first saw it, two hours after it was shared, the commenting had been stopped. But during that short time the post was shared many times and had inspired dozens of comments — each one expressed disappointment in the direction of the museum.
The photo is an architectural rendering provided by the museum to publicize their announcement of their selection of design partners for a major reinstallation project.
Here are a few comments I was able to document —
- Horrible! We have one of the finest museums in the world. Keep it in the classic Grecian style. (7 likes)
- I agree. Don’t mess with perfection.
- THAT is hideous.
- The museum was designed to mimic the Louvre in Paris. I hope this is a joke, it looks ugly and uninviting. The building itself is a work of art. If this is true, it could lead to a decline in visits and threaten the uniqueness of our museum.
- Do you ever read about art restorations and upgrades and say, “What were they thinking?” We’re living in one of those.
- No!
- Apple store
- Leave it alone keep it like it is don’t destroy the museum
- Nooooo!
- Cold and stark. Why the need to mess with the beautiful, classic style?
- It looks like a mall.
- It sure does.
- Why???? Horrible. Feels like a hospital.
- (crying emojis)
- (mad face emoji)
The public comments on the shares remain on the Facebook pages of those who shared the post, with the actual post removed and the group’s banner replacing it, leaving all their comments out of context, but here are some of those comments —
- Please god no
- Wow, that is history they are messing with…how disappointing they would do that
- man toledo be really pissing me the f— off
- That’s terrible! A museum should reflect and honor the past.
- It literally doesn’t need to change. That modern white is so ugly. They’re about to ruin one of my favorite places.
- I hate the new design, will not go back, they are going to ruin the museum.
- Wow I love when historical legacies with real beauty get removed to have a museum that looks like an apple store.
-
Use this money to fix the roads/schools, the art museum is beautiful the way it is
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It looks so minimal eww
- I’m pissed!
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asf, ruins the whole vibe
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Lookit this garbage they are tryna do to our art museum
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They better not smh
-
Yeah they better not
- NOT a fan (of the changes)!
- Disgusting
-
if they do this will never go back fal@ don’t make the art museum look like a damn hospital plsss
- Maaan
- What the hell
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It literally doesn’t need to change. That modern white is so ugly. They’re about to ruin one of my favorite places
- Stupid
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Ts take the history out the museum??
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That’s terrible! A museum should reflect and honor the past.
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I will actually sob uncontrollably
- That looks so boring why would they want that??
The Blade asked me what I thought of the museum’s reinstallation plan, to include a quote for their news article, Toledo Museum of Art furthers reinstallation plans, which was published on November 21. I was looking forward to sharing the link with the group, but I wasn’t allowed to share it or anything else, and then I noticed that my post was removed! And I was censored!
Many people went to the trouble of posting their displeasure with the direction of the museum. Their voices were censored too.
Here’s my quote in the article that was published in The Blade:
And just to make my feelings perfectly clear
It should disgust the community that the museum sells its great paintings and diminishes its collection, after stopping its decades-long Saturday classes that brought together 2500 children from all over the city. It’s disgusting that the museum brands itself with the “community” buzzword after killing the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition. How patronizing it is to use the 2-mile radius of the museum as an excuse to rip apart the museum as if to make it more appealing to the neighborhood…… When all Adam Levine wants is attention from other museums so he can have a way out of Toledo, after spending a fortune giving the museum the wrecking ball. The museum never had to worry about its reputation before, because they truly were great, and now they are just running on fumes.