This is such an amazingly comprehensive and brilliantly curated exhibit. Every one of my favorite Grant Wood paintings is here, with the words Cedar Rapids all over the wall descriptions. I talked at length with one of the docents, who knew more about Grant Wood than I do. But I know more about Marvin Cone SO THERE.

Grant Wood was gay. The Whitney says it right when you walk into the exhibit. But Grant Wood's been saying it for decades with every hunky farmer and soldier he's ever drawn or painted. LISTEN, PEOPLE! Here's my favorite painting OF ALL FUCKING TIME! RIGHT HERE! IN FRONT OF ME! WITH A STUPID GLARE ON THE GLASS! I have written about it extensively RIGHT HERE IN THIS LINK! Fact! Grant Wood drew vaguely tawdry and vulgar cover art for undeniably tawdry and vulgar books. To wit: Here's a direct blurb quote from Passion Spins the Plot (you may want to sit down for this): "Leaving the wild, brutal land of his childhood, Vridar Hunter enters college with little understanding of women. But there he is led down the forbidden paths of youth. He meets pick-ups and prostitutes, gets drunk, steals, and tortures his body with erotic imaginings of a soul growing from adolescence to manhood. Yet always in Vridar's heart burns the bright dream of Neloa, to whom he has pledged his love. It is not until Vridar returns home that Neloa's own soiled lips shatter his image of a passion as pure as vestal flame." VESTAL FLAMES, PEOPLE! I probably know this woman's descendants, who no doubt prowl the streets of Cedar Rapids endlessly smirking and judging, smirking and judging:
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