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Art Basel presents Meet the Collectors: a new video series introducing some of the world’s most exciting art collections – and the people behind them

Juan and Patricia Vergez: the Buenos Aires couple championing playfully immersive art

Crooked passageways, doors to nowhere, an inside-out elevator housing a vertiginous drop: Juan and Patricia Vergez are drawn to decidedly experiential artworks. It was this delight of letting artists flip the script that initially hooked the Argentine couple on art. Today their exhibition space in Buenos Aires is one of the leading private collections in Argentina.The Vergez Collection is firmly anchored in the contemporary, combining Argentine artists like <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8611/Tom%C3%A1s-Saraceno">Tomás Saraceno</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/30153/Mariela-Scafati">Mariela Scafati</a>, and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/stories/Leandro%20Erlich">Leandro Erlich</a> with international names such as <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11322/Monika-Sosnowska">Monika Sosnowska</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7286/Ernesto-Neto"> Ernesto Neto</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11710/Elmgreen-Dragset">Elmgreen &amp; Dragset</a>, and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8384/Olafur-Eliasson">Olafur Eliasson</a>. In 2016, the couple bought a former ink factory in Buenos Aires’ San Telmo district and opened Espacio Tacuarí, which now gathers many of the ambitiously scaled artworks the collectors have acquired over the past two decades.Although the Vergezes pay close attention to local talents and are patrons of <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/cities">Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires</a> and the arteBA Fundación, they are keen to present the Argentine artists in their collection alongside their global peers. ‘This way, everyone can discover something, no matter where they are coming from,’ says Patricia, an artist herself. In this video, the collectors invite us in to experience some of their favorite perspective-altering pieces.

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