Tiqui Atencio on discovering her taste and living with art: ‘You’re not born with an eye, you must develop it’

‘Trust me,’ says Tiqui Atencio, ‘I was completely uninformed in those early days.’ She throws up her hands in mock horror. For someone who is known for her discerning taste and has been described by the New York Times as ‘a highly regarded collector’, this is something of an admission. ‘I really was ignorant,’ she continues, laughing. ‘Thankfully, I realised if I was going to do this, I was going to have to get educated.’

Sitting on a sea-green sofa in her beautiful home furnished with an elegant mix of mid-century modern design, Atencio is a warm presence. Her high blonde ponytail is immediately recognisable from her Instagram account. On the wall behind her is Bedtime Story (1999), a sensual pink and red painting by Cecily Brown. Atencio discovered the New York-based British artist long before her works hit the seven-figure mark. ‘I should have found more!’ she says.

There’s something at once timeless and very current about Atencio. She was well ahead of the market on Latin American artists in the 1980s, and today she stands at the high connoisseurship level. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the new crop of art stars currently on the ascent, and is an active presence both online and at exhibitions and fairs around the globe. It’s fair to say that Atencio lives and breathes art 24/7.

The Venezuelan-born collector is also the author of three books on the lives and living spaces of prominent figures in art and design — meaning that her appreciation of how to place an impressive Serge Mouille triple-armed standing lamp alongside a monolithic fly painting by Damien Hirst, so as not to take away from the artwork’s appeal but rather to add to it, may be considered to be in the realms of behavioural science, or perhaps even a professional sport.

Throughout 2025, Atencio and her husband Ago Demirdjian have offered art and design in For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio & Ago Demirdjian, a series of sales held across New York and Paris. London’s 20th/21st Century Art season in October will showcase post-war and contemporary works from the couple’s collection in the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale, the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale and Post-War and Contemporary Art Online.

Born in Maracaibo, Atencio is one of a generation of supremely cultured, well-connected South Americans. Her father was an industrialist and real-estate developer, and she grew up between three continents: North America, South America and Europe. When she was a teenager, her aunt and uncle — who owned an apartment above the old Christie’s building on Park Avenue in New York — would take her to exhibitions and auctions. It was all ‘galleries and luncheons, very much a family affair’, she remembers.

However, it was not until the age of 17, when her father gave her a painting of yellow lilies by the French artist Bernard Buffet, that Atencio began to look at art as something more than just an object to hang on a wall.

After studying fine art, she turned to art history at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas and soon began building a collection in earnest. Originally, she focused on Latin American art, searching out works by Brazilian modernists such as Lygia Pape and Hélio Oiticica, as well as home-grown talents from Venezuela, among them Gego, Jesús Rafael Soto, Armando Reverón and Alejandro Otero. ‘You’re not born with an eye, you must develop it,’ she says, ‘and that comes with a lot of legwork. You need to get out there and meet artists and go to galleries and exhibitions.’

By the early 1990s, Atencio and Demirdjian were in New York, the artistic epicentre, when they learned about a group of rebellious young British artists making waves in Brixton and east London. ‘I remember asking my friends, “What do you think of the YBAs [Young British Artists]?” but no one had heard of them.’ Through White Cube gallery, she became acquainted with Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas.

‘It was easy then,’ she says. ‘The art market was much smaller, and you knew you were going to keep the artworks for the rest of your life. Now, art is more often considered a commodity, like real estate, and there’s huge competition. The waiting lists are immense, and the auctions are intense.’

Even so, she still loves the buzz of the auction house. ‘It’s exciting — I get so nervous,’ she says, recalling the nail-biting experience of competing for a fiercely contested Jim Hodges sculpture. Unsurprisingly, she’s a popular dinner-party guest, with art lovers keen to get her opinion. It was partly in response to this that she published her first book, Could Have, Would Have, Should Have: Inside the World of the Art Collector (2016), a candid collection of interviews with more than 100 internationally renowned art aficionados, such as Peter Brant, Laurence Graff and Anita Zabludowicz.

It’s a testament to Atencio’s likability and standing in the rarified world of art that so many collectors agreed to speak to her. Art’s high-rollers are notoriously private, and the process of acquiring work is often cloaked in secrecy, but Atencio is on first-name terms with many, having sat on the boards of some of the world’s leading museums, including the Guggenheim in New York. She is also the founder of the Tate’s Latin American Acquisition Committee.

She says it’s important for boards and committees to respect the institution’s vision: ‘It must come from the curators.’ By way of example, she mentions the focus on Indigenous art at the 2024 Venice Biennale: ‘I hardly recognised any of the artists, but the work was incredible — a good curator will open up another world for you.’

Atencio’s two more recent books are For Art’s Sake: Inside the Homes of Art Dealers (2020) and Inside the Homes of Artists (2024). She says the house that surprised her most was Tracey Emin’s Georgian home in London: ‘It was so light, calm and beautiful, nothing like you’d imagine.’ Emin is a friend, and Atencio is in awe of her passion and energy, particularly how she’s building her legacy with her philanthropic venture TKE Studios, a free art school and studio complex in Margate, Kent.

For her own part, Atencio is a keen advocate of young artists from the Caribbean. She and Demirdjian recently established the Mustique Caribbean Contemporary Art Show & Prize. Its first recipients are Brian Ashing, Akilah Watts and Anna Gibson. The opening night of the exhibition of the shortlisted artists on the island of Mustique, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was ‘crazy’, says Atencio, with collectors, fashion designers and pop stars all fighting over paintings. ‘Mick Jagger bought a work by Brian Ashing, and now he’s on a residency in the south of France,’ she says with great pride.

This advocacy and support for artists is a key part of why she and Demirdjian consider the role of the collector so important: ‘It’s easy to praise an artist at their opening or whatever, which is nice, but it doesn’t help them. Buying their work says you believe in them. That validation is huge, and everything else flows from there.’

For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio & Ago Demirdjian will be offered in the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October 2025, the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 16 October, and Post-War and Contemporary Art Online, bidding 8-22 October. The final sales will be held online in December with First Open: Post-War & Contemporary Art, and Latin American Art Online. Explore Christie’s 20th/21st Century Art auctions

Main image. Artworks: © Ed Ruscha; © Wade Guyton, Matthew Marks Gallery; © Estate of Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; © Gabriel Orozco; © Antony Gormley; © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved / DACS, London / ARS, NY 2025; © Charlotte Perriand / Jean Prouvé / Serge Mouille / ADAGP, Paris / DACS, London / ARS, NY 2025