Andrea Schlieker

Curator, Folkestone Triennial, June 14-Sept 14; www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk

“I’m working with about 30 artists, including David Batchelor, Tacita Dean, Susan Philipsz and Ivan and Heather Morison, all producing amazing new works. I’d be delighted to buy each one! But, on a realistic and affordable note, I’d snap up, if possible, the haunting photograph by a young Bosnian artist, Sejla Kameric, that’s exhibited in Folkestone’s Salvation Army shop during the triennial. It’s £499.99, and proceeds go to the charity.”

Joan Wasser

Joan As Police Woman’s new single, To Be Loved, is out tomorrow; her second album, To Survive, on June 9

“When I can, I collect Colin Burns, who’s based in New York. He does work on his own (www. vivagritona.com) and also collabo- rates with David Hochbaum and Travis Lindquist, under the name Goldmine Shithouse (www.gold mineshithouse.com). I used one of their paintings, Sibling, which I own, for the poster insert in my record Real Life. Colin’s work is beautiful, dark and sometimes funny. I need funny. He paints, does prints from linoleum cuts and draws. The root of his work is DIY/punk, but it’s filtered through a colourful mind and, therefore, the results are, at times, beautiful, moving works of art.”

Simon Patterson

His current exhibition, The Undersea World and Other Stories, is at the National Maritime Museum until Oct 26

“I’ve been lucky enough to swap work with contemporaries I respect, such as Fiona Banner, Liam Gillick, Thomas Grünfeld, Michael Landy and David Musgrave – building up a small collection almost by accident. If I were to save to buy a work, it would be by Fischli & Weiss, the Swiss duo. Some of their work is apparently just about pottering in the studio, like the video Kitty, a six-minute giant projection loop of a cat lapping milk – literally getting the cream. So much of their work is deadpan: I like the reticence, humour – and seriousness, too.”

Iwona Blazwick

Director, Whitechapel Gallery; www.whitechapel.org

“I love collecting editions: they’re affordable because artists create them to find their way into the hearts and homes of mere mortals on earthly salaries. An edition can be an object, a hand-worked print, a piece of embroidery, a photograph. I have a plaster cast of what looks like a baby’s torso, but is actually a hot-water bottle, by Rachel Whiteread. Artists often create editions to support galleries such as the Whitechapel [its editions start at £25, with many for £100, and a special edition by Anish Kapoor for up to £4,700]. I’ve been able to acquire stunning works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Antony Gormley knowing I’m doing my bit to support public art spaces. I’d like to own the photographs of Paul Graham or Thomas Struth; sculpture by Claire Barclay, Jorge Pardo, Tobias Rehberger or Gary Webb. I love collage – anything from vintage Hannah Höch to the contemporary John Stezaker. I also love to inspire new addicts through our Collecting Contemporary Art courses or discover what people own. Every collector supports our future cultural heritage.”

Margot Heller

Director, South London Gallery

“Certain things really stay with you, and Karla Black’s work has made a strong imprint on my mind. It’s really important to buy things simply because you love them, and to be sure that even if the artist didn’t make another work, you’d still be happy with your purchase. That said, the Glasgow-based Black has a great career ahead, so now is the time to buy. One of her suspended sheets of paint-dipped polythene or paper would look both beautiful and surprising in a domestic setting [from £2,500 to £9,000]. I love the way they combine a fragile instability with a bold challenge to notions of what painting, or sculpture, can be. One would nourish both mind and eye for many years to come.”

Greta Scacchi

The actress is appearing in The Deep Blue Sea at the Vaudeville, WC2

“My father, a painter and art dealer, stored works by 20th-century artists on the walls at home. I was spoilt growing up with original Klimt, Schiele, Sutherland, Nash, Klee, Picasso, Miro and Mondrian around me. A Bacon hung in my bedroom for two years. It was an aggressive image, but so complex in its layers: the eye could explore it and the mind be stimulated and soothed by it. It was a living presence. I decided then, aged 10, that a good painting must speak to me – not telling its whole story in one glance, but keeping secrets to unravel.

“I’ve never been interested in art as an investment. My most precious possessions are paintings by my friends Bill Parrott, Peter Collins, Nick Granger-Taylor and, of course, by my father, Luca Scacchi Gracco. I’m keen to find a sculpture to stand in my garden woods, something of beauty to harmo-nise with the environment. A giant Caro, perhaps.”

Alistair Spalding

Chief executive and artistic director, Sadler’s Wells

“With the performing arts, you can’t keep what you see, and many pieces are very difficult to restage. [The choreographers] Pina Bausch and William Forsythe are heroes of mine – Penny Kaplan’s photo-portrait of a rather stern Pina watches over me in my office – but while she has works in repertoire, he always moves on. I dream of being able to replay Forsythe’s Eidos: Telos; yet the closest I can get is Mike Figgis’s photographs of the performance by Ballett Frankfurt. I also own a limited-edition Antony Gormley sketch, his take on a dancer, bought for £250 at one of our fundraisers. In Beijing, researching this season’s China Now-related bill, I was seduced by a photograph called Two Women Reading by Wang Lang and Liu Xinhua. As for paintings, about 10 years ago I nearly bought a Callum Innes, after seeing an Edinburgh show. I wish I had, as he’s more expensive now. The visual art that appeals to me is calming and contemplative; it slows you down to its pace – the opposite of what dance does.”

Ron & Russell Mael (Sparks)

Sparks are touring a “21 albums in 21 nights” concert series

Ron: “I’ve collected Air Jordan sneakers since 1984; there are 23 different pairs in plastic display cases in the living room. I’ve also got cereal boxes and movie posters: good design, you see. Charles and Ray Eames’s house in LA is only a block from our first studio. You can’t get inside, but I bought some moulded plywood miniatures of their chairs. But I need one piece of ‘real art’ to contrast. A small Rembrandt drawing – of his mother, I think – I saw in Amsterdam haunts me. But it’s just a dream that one day I could actually own it.” Russell: “After interviewing us in the 1980s, Andy Warhol gave each of us a manila envelope from the Factory that he signed with a marker pen. I guess that vouched for them being unique Warhols; mine is framed now. Today, I like John Baldessari. He uses black-and-white photography and B-movie stills, then paints over shapes or faces with blocks or circles of vibrant colours. It’s striking. I’d love one of his Person with Guitar series. Some say he operates between pop and conceptual – like Sparks, it’s the ‘betweenness’ that begs all the questions.”

Jude Kelly

Artistic director, Southbank Centre

“What art I have bought is mainly Colombian, through the [extra-curricular] project spaces I run called Metal [www.metalculture. com]. There are three artists I’ve begun to collect: Luis Fernando Pelaez, Hugo Zapata and Delcy Morelos. Zapata is a sculptor who works in the most amazing stone, which he finds in riverbeds and carves until it’s as smooth as ebony; Peleaz is concerned with memory and works with photography and resin, and how the photograph becomes a dream; Morelos, a painter, is more visceral, with strongly defined colours and themes of violence and discrimination. In Colombia, the art is very close to the way people are living and thinking. It’s so powerful; I’m drawn to its layers of meaning.”

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