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

‘Trust me’ says Tiqui Atencio, ‘I was completely uninformed in those early days’, and 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 says, 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 a sensual pink and red painting by Cecily Brown, Bedtime Stories (1999). Atencio discovered the British, New York-based artist long before her artworks hit the $4 million mark. ‘I should have found more!’ she laments.

There’s something at once timeless and very current about Atencio. She was well ahead of the art 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, who just returned from the annual Spanish art fair ARCOmadrid where she also made time to see the Joana Vasconcelos show at the Liria Palace and the Sigmar Polke exhibition at the Prado, 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. That is to say, her appreciation of how to place an impressive Serge Mouille triple-armed standing lamp just so in front of a steely grey Ellsworth Kelly so as not to take away from the painting’s appeal but rather to add, runs to the depths of behavioral science, perhaps even a professional sport.

This May she and her husband, Ago Demirdjian, are hoping a grouping of art and objects from their life-long endeavors will find new stewards in For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio & Ago Demirdjian at Christie’s.

A lifelong dialogue with art

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. As a teenager, her aunt and uncle would take her to exhibitions and auctions — they owned an apartment above the old Christie’s building on Park Avenue — it was all ‘galleries and luncheons, very much a family affair’, she remembers. However, it was not until age 17 when her father gave her a painting of yellow lilies by the French artist Bernard Buffett that Atencio began to look at art as something more than 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 focussed on Latin American art, searching out works by Brazilian Modernists such as Lygia Pape and Hélio Oiticica as well as home-grown talent from Venezuela such as Gego, Jesús Rafael Soto, Armando Reverón and Alejandro Otero. She says, ‘You’re not born with an eye, you must develop it, and that comes with a lot of legwork. You need to get out there and meet artists and go to galleries and exhibitions.’

A trusted art world insider and patron

By the early 1990s Atencio and Demirdjian were in New York, at the artistic epicentre with Ed Ruscha and Jeff Koons, 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. (That work, Hodges’ Trembling Joy (1994), acquired at Christie’s, will be resold in the 21st Century Evening Sale this May.) Unsurprisingly, she’s a popular dinner party guest, with art lovers keen to get her opinion. In response she published her first book, Could Have, Should Have, Would Have: Inside the World of the Art Collector (2016), a candid collection of interviews with more than 100 internationally renowned aficionados such as Peter Brandt, Laurence Graff and Anita Zabludowicz.

It’s a testament to Atencio’s likeability and standing in the rarified art world that so many collectors agreed to speak to her — these 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 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. She is also the founder of the Tate’s Latin American Acquisition Committee.

She says it’s important as head of acquisition committees that you 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.’ 

Inspiring the next generation of artists and collectors

Atencio’s two more recent books are For Art’s Sake; Inside the Homes of Art Dealers (Rizzoli, 2020) and Inside the Homes of Artists (Rizzoli, 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 Atencio’s own part, she’s a keen advocate of young artists from the Caribbean. She and Demirdjian recently established the Mustique Caribbean Contemporary Art Show & Prize. The first prize recipients are Brian Ashing, Akilah Watts and Anna Gibson. The opening night of the exhibition of the shortlisted artists on Mustique Island, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was ‘crazy’, 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 collecting 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.’

In May 2025 For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio & Ago Demirdjian begins with a single-owner sequence opening New York’s 21st Century Evening Sale, as well as additional works in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale in New York and the Design sale in Paris. The excitement continues in October with Latin American Art Online in New York and the 20/21 Evening Sale and Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale in London, followed by First Open Online in New York in December.