Transcript
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Wendy Wolf:
Most visitors to Vizcaya really want to understand James Deering personally, whether they’re on a tour or whether they’re having a casual conversation with staff.
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They’re really interested in getting to know James Deering. Certainly, he was an icon, someone who had the wealth to build this large estate
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and in some ways maybe feels disconnected or hard to get to know or understand. So, thinking about who he spent time with—
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his intimate relationships, his friendships, his family—these are all ways for us to understand James Deering as a person and for us to explore who James Deering was.
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When we talk to visitors about the construction of Vizcaya and how James Deering purchased and amassed the collection for Vizcaya,
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we let visitors know that James Deering went on buying trips throughout Europe with artistic director Paul Chalfin. When visitors hear that they were traveling
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through Europe together, they often assume, just from that piece of information, that James Deering must have been gay. We often wonder what would happen
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if we came across a letter or a diary that indicated yes, he was gay, or no, he wasn’t. What would we have gained
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if there was no further information about the people that he spent his time with? Would that be enough—a yes or no answer—to satisfy our curiosity?
