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“This is our happiness, our joy!” exclaims Françoise Billarant, when I ask her if running a private museum with her husband Jean-Philippe is very demanding.

The couple are in their early eighties, and for almost half a century they have focused exclusively on collecting Minimalist, conceptual and contemporary art. In 2011 they opened Le Silo, a private art space in a former grain storage in a small town 45km north-west of Paris, to show their extensive collection.

The Billarants’ money comes from the family company Aplix, a maker of hook-and-loop fasteners with 880 global employees and a turnover of a little under €200mn. Today, their daughter Sandrine is chief executive, the third generation in the business.

Neither Françoise nor Jean-Philippe’s families were art collectors, they tell me as we drive back from Le Silo. The couple started buying art in the mid-1970s, traditional paintings at the Parisian saleroom Drouot, “just to put something on our walls”, says Jean-Philippe. Their initial enthusiasm for this older art soon waned. He explains: “I thought there must be contemporary artists who will be as significant one day as the Old Masters are now — with the advantage that we can get to know them.” A first foray into contemporary art, the purchase of two pretty pastoral scenes from a Right Bank gallery, ended with them taking them back to the dealer: “They were very pretty — too pretty,” Jean-Philippe laughs.

We didn’t buy with the idea of forming a collection, it was our way of supporting the artists, who became our friends

A turning point was a dinner with the curator Suzanne Pagé, at the time with the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and a later meeting with Serge Lemoine, former president of the Musée d’Orsay and a specialist in geometric abstraction. “Gradually, we moved towards conceptual and minimal art. We really taught ourselves. And we bought with our eyes, not our ears,” Françoise says. Jean-Philippe interjects: “Initially we didn’t buy with the idea of forming a collection, it was our way of supporting the artists. But we couldn’t leave the works in crates, so to give them life, we had to put them on display.”

For 30 years they were thinking of showing the collection, but when they had the “time and money” it only took a year to find Le Silo. About 100-120 works are displayed at a time in the building, and every two years the exhibition is changed; Jean-Philippe curates each show. “We have held seven to date, but we still haven’t been able to show everything,” says Françoise. Their Parisian home also shows Minimalist art, “but on a smaller scale”, she says.

Le Silo is open by appointment only; during Art Basel Paris the Billarants are expecting dozens of visitors, whom they take round themselves, communicating their enthusiasm for each piece. The sizeable collection, which numbers just under 1,000 works, is very much a mutual passion, and both know it intimately. There seems to be a great affinity between them, and they correct each other good-naturedly if the other hesitates over, say, a date.

“We know, or knew, almost all the artists we collect — they became friends,” says Jean-Philippe. The collection starts in the 1960s and comprises pieces by the great names of Minimalism — a copper floor piece by Carl Andre (“Mons Veneris”, 1975), two metal boxes by Donald Judd (1969), a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt, a neon by Dan Flavin, as well as newer names — French artists François Morellet, Daniel Buren and the Scottish artist Charles Sandison, with wall pieces made of metal plaques. Also in the collection is “Proposition” (2002), a white-and-black work by the Brazilian couple Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain, who are among the contenders for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (the French equivalent of the UK’s Turner Prize) this year. 

These and many more are displayed in the buff-coloured building, which dates from 1962 and was converted by the architect Dominique Perrault. A Lawrence Weiner text stands above the two doors — “Two Stones Tossed into the Wind (Causing Sparks)” (1988) — which open into a light-filled, airy space with the works carefully spaced out. Propped against one wall are two rusted metal squares by Richard Serra (“Basic Source”, 1987). “They weigh 1.7 tonnes . . . so they are never moved,” says Jean-Philippe.

Delicately, I ask what the future of Le Silo is. “We have a project which will enable it to remain after we have gone,” says Jean-Philippe. “I can’t tell you more, but there will be an announcement within the year.” I try to guess: a deal with the French state? Tantalisingly, they remain tight-lipped.

As our visit comes to an end, Françoise says, “Time is essential, to build a collection like this.” And we can only hope that it will last into the future, well beyond their own lifetimes.

Le Silo: route de Breancon, 95640 Marines. +331 4321 3816, by appointment only

AS the temperature cools down the deals heat up with Aldi’s cosy winter gadgets set to hit the shelves in days.

The Ambiano Heated Throw is heading to be one of the famed Aldi specialbuys on Thursday 17 October for just £29.99.

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With heating costs being a hot topic of conversation this year, these blankets could be a solution to keeping those bills down.

Many homes are set to be subjected a detrimental change in their energy bill as the cold snap approaches, with some set to rise by £149 each year.

Preparing yourself for the chill can be one way to save money this season.

Running at a remarkable cost of 4p an hour, this electric blanket may be the key to keeping cool about energy bills this Christmas.

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The nine adjustable temperature levels allow you to tailor your blanket to your taste – providing the perfect measure of comfort for you.

To warm up your bed before getting cosy for the frosty nights to come, Aldi recommends using a higher setting to preheat your bed.

This can create the ultimate comfort for when you’re ready to drift off.

When using it as a throw blanket its recommended to use it at a lower heat.

How does it compare

A quick Google brings up a range of heated blankets that can go from £84.99 at Lakeland to £150 at The White Company.

Not all heated throws will break the bank though with Asda offering an electric teddy fleece for £30.00.

Argos is also selling a heated blanket in the £35 range.

If you’re looking to cut costs as much as possible, Amazon offers a variety of heated blankets with one going at a spectacular £18.99.

However this doesn’t come with Ambiano Heated Throw’s nine settings.

How much does it cost to run a heated throw?

Aldi claims it costs an extraordinary 4p an hour to run the Ambiano Heated Throw.

If you want get your bed toasty for a couple hours a night, this would tot up to 56p a week.

For a whole year of using the blankets for two hours you would be spending under £30 in total.

How to save money at Aldi

Aldi doesn’t have a membership program or a point system which offer deals on specific items.

However they offer the Aldi specialbuys in which there are a range of new deals that drop each week, with the winter gadget speical buys coming in on 17 October.

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On Sunday 13 October there are a collection of laundry and cleaning deals set to hit the shelves.

Just a couple of months after Olympic fencers duelled in the newly renovated Grand Palais, Art Basel Paris opens its first fair there on Wednesday. “We’ve been in a transitional place [the Grand Palais Éphémère] for the past two years, building up to this truly inaugural edition in the most beautiful venue in the world: a place of history, a place of patrimony,” says Clément Delépine, director of Art Basel Paris.

Many of its 195 exhibitors hope that the splendour can help assuage growing art market jitters around the world. Art Basel’s commitment to Paris stands as a symbol of the capital’s art-market kudos since Brexit made trading trickier in London, previously Europe’s long-acknowledged art-market centre. Although Paris still doesn’t boast as high a turnover of art — the latest UBS & Art Basel report puts 2023 sales at $4.6bn compared to $10.9bn in the UK — its trajectory since is on the up, as London’s falls. A separate report, by ArtTactic, found that auction sales in the first half of 2024 were up 12 per cent in Paris compared to the same period last year, while in London they fell by 29 per cent (and 27 per cent globally).

At the same time, the mood is not as high as it has been. A snap election called by President Macron just before the Games created a sense of national uncertainty that to some extent remains. In the event, the election results caused less upheaval than some had feared. Delépine suggests that the climate is “shockingly positive”, adding that “an agitated political rentrée [after the summer] is not a new phenomenon” in France.

Ahead of Art Basel Paris, Anne-Claudie Coric, executive director of Paris’s Galerie Templon, remains optimistic. She describes the Grand Palais backdrop as “a magical place with gorgeous light”. Her gallery is presenting a mixed booth including work by French artists Abdelkader Benchamma, Philippe Cognée and François Rouan, as well as the American Jim Dine, who lives some of the time in Paris (prices €30,000-€400,000).

The wider art-market backdrop is not doing anyone any favours, in a year of depleted auction results and slower trade at most fairs so far. Anika Guntrum, the Paris-based managing director for Europe at the art advisory firm Gurr Johns, believes this could play to the strengths of the country’s collecting psyche. “The market here is still very traditional, in the positive sense of the word,” she says. “It is more about preserving and respecting art [versus investing]. We don’t hit the same highs, but also don’t hit the same lows.” Gurr Johns officially opens its Paris offices this week, for which Guntrum has organised a show of Cubist art in its gallery space (opening October 14).

Collecting art, Guntrum continues, “runs deep here; many [younger] collectors grew up with pictures in their parents’ and grandparents’ homes”. As such, Art Basel Paris comes in at the more serious end of the spectrum when it comes to the art on offer. This year a new section called Premise brings together nine galleries, some showing art made before 1900, with an emphasis on overlooked artists. This will include a booth of work by the Moroccan painter Mohamed Melehi (Loft Art Gallery, €18,000-€380,000) and a double-header pairing of the Brazilian artist Chico Tabibuia with Japanese-Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake, whose work is also currently in the Venice Biennale (Nara Roesler, $25,000-$470,000). “Premise distinguishes us from the other [Art Basel] fairs and is a window for stories that haven’t been heard before,” Delépine says.

Weighty shows at Paris’s prestigious museums infuse the fair too. The Pompidou’s exhibition celebrating a century of Surrealism, for example, resonates in the booth of Paris-born Emmanuel Di Donna, who has operated a gallery in New York since 2010 and is one of 53 galleries new to the fair this year. From his stock of Surrealist works, he brings paintings by Yves Tanguy, Wifredo Lam, Agustín Cárdenas and Alicia Penalba (prices from about €40,000 for Penalba to over €4mn for Lam). These include Tanguy’s relatively early “Le Bateau” (1925-6), with stylised steam emerging from the boat’s three flattened funnels.

Di Donna is limiting his art-fair showings to just three this year. “The material I handle is at the top end of the secondary market, so I don’t want to spread myself too thin,” he says. Excitement around the grand venue played into his thinking, while Paris is pertinent to the artists on his booth, because “it was their passage through [the city] that forms their language”. Of the wider market mood, he acknowledges some “decision paralysis” on the part of collectors, but says “there is still a lot of money waiting on the sidelines”.

Tornabuoni Art also leans into the city’s institutional exhibitions. As well as Surrealist work, its Arte Povera offerings include an enamel canvas by Pino Pascali and a large “Mappa” (1989-91) tapestry by Alighiero Boetti (prices from €60,000 to more than €10mn), chiming with the show dedicated to the 1960s and 1970s Italian art movement at the Pinault Collection’s Bourse de Commerce. At Hauser & Wirth, meanwhile, a two-metre high, 2021 bronze by Barbara Chase-Riboud ($1.9mn), coincides with a remarkable collaboration between eight of the city’s major museums to show her work, including under the pyramid of the Louvre museum.

It’s not all heavyweight, however. There’s the second iteration of the Art Basel shop, with its pricey souvenirs, artist editions and the first Art Basel scent, created with Guerlain, and with packaging by the Parisian painter Julie Beaufils. The perfumer has a separate stand in the fair to highlight its collaboration with the Korean artist Lee Ufan, while other luxury brands abound in and around the fair. Louis Vuitton once again hosts its Frank Gehry-designed, art-filled lounge, while new public programme sponsor Miu Miu brings a project by Goshka Macuga to the Palais d’Iéna.

The fair has also jazzed up its display with an initiative called Oh La La! “We’re not afraid to be cheeky,” says Delépine of the scheme, which sees 33 galleries on the Friday and Saturday replace some of the art on their booths with quirky, talking-point works “about warm feelings — love, sentiment and the erotic”. The plan could avoid the stasis of an event that opens to VIPs two days before the public. Is it a case of getting the crowd to come back to the fair a second time in one week? “I want people to come 20 times,” he says. With all that the city has to offer, it’s quite an ask, though in Art Basel’s much-anticipated new Paris home, they just might.

October 18–20, artbasel.com

FORMER First Minister Alex Salmond has died at the age of 69.

The Alba leader passed away after delivering a speech in North Macedonia.

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It’s understood he collapsed after taking ill.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “The sad news of Alex Salmond’s passing today will come as a shock to all who knew him in Scotland, across the U.K and beyond.

“Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time and on behalf of Scottish Labour I offer our sincere condolences to all who will be mourning his loss.

“Alex was a central figure in politics for over three decades and his contribution to the Scottish political landscape can not be overstated.

“It is right that we recognise Alex’s service to our country as First Minister and to the communities he represented as both MP and MSP.”

Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry added: “I am devastated to hear that Alex Salmond has died. He was one of the most talented politicians of his generation, and, by any measure, the finest First Minister our country has had. He changed the face of Scottish politics.

“I shall remember him as an inspiration and a loyal friend. My heartfelt condolences go to Moira, his family, and all who loved him.”

Mr Salmond was First Minister of Scotland between 2007 and 2014.

He resigned after failing in his bid to persuade Scots to vote for independence in a referendum in 2014.

He returned to Westminster as MP for Gordon between 2015 and 2017.

Mr Salmond resigned from the SNP in August 2018 after allegations of sexual offences.

During a criminal trial in 2020 he was cleared of 14 sexual assault charges.

Asked if he expected to see another referendum, Mr Salmond told The Scottish Sun last month: “Well, whether it’s a referendum or not, I think Scotland will be independent in my lifetime.”

Mr Salmond announced he was stepping down the day after Yes lost.

He recalled: “I wasn’t under any pressure to resign but by taking responsibility it cleared the field for the SNP. Those who lost the referendum emerged very quickly as the political winners.”

More to follow…

For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Scottish Sun.

Thescottishsun.co.uk is your go to destination for the best celebrity news, football news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.

Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thescottishsun and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheScottishSun.

Tazmin Brits hit 42 as South Africa clinched a seven-wicket win over Bangladesh but now face a nervous wait to see if they will qualify for the Women’s T20 World Cup semi-finals.

South Africa were unable to overhaul West Indies’ net run rate (NRR) as they chased down a modest target of 107 with 16 balls to spare.

In fact the Proteas’ NRR actually decreased to +1.382, which is lower than West Indies’ current rate of +1.708.

It means South Africa realistically need England, who face Scotland on Sunday, to beat West Indies on Tuesday to finish as the runners-up in Group B.

South Africa lost in-form captain Laura Wolvaardt early on in their reply after she was stumped for seven by Bangladesh counterpart Nigar Sultana Joty off the bowling of Fahima Khatun, who finished with 2-19.

Bangladesh were left to rue a dropped catch in the eighth over after Fahima shelled a straightforward chance offered by Brits, when she was on 21.

Brits was eventually bowled by Ritu Moni but Marizanne Kapp and Chloe Tryon saw South Africa over the line without any further loss.

Bangladesh were already all but out of the tournament and this defeat confirmed their exit.

More to follow.

Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI) split its shares this month and now they are trading at one-tenth of what they were before the split. For investors, that means a lower share price, and perhaps the ability to own more full shares. Stock splits can sometimes have positive effects on the share price even though they don’t fundamentally change anything about a company’s prospects or improve its earnings numbers.

With shares of Super Micro Computer, also known as just Supermicro, down more than 50% in just the past six months, could the recent split provide the stock a boost, and potentially help stop its tailspin?

Why a stock split may not help Supermicro

A stock split doesn’t solve any problems for a business. Regardless of whether Supermicro stock is trading at $450 or $45, investors can buy fractional shares if they want to invest in it but don’t have the funds necessary to acquire entire shares of the company. And that’s why stock splits normally shouldn’t lead to a rally in the share price; they don’t change valuation multiples to make the stock a better buy.

Some investors may believe that because a stock is priced lower, it’s cheaper and a better buy, but that is a mistake. When talking about valuation, you should always look at per-share earnings and revenue multiples, which take into context the share price. And stock splits don’t change those multiples.

Stock splits can become positive catalysts if a stock rises significantly in value and then a company opts to do a split. In Supermicro’s case, however, the stock has been crashing of late, and its stock split comes at a time when there’s a lot of negativity and bearishness around the business, which is why a split may not have a positive effect on its share price.

Supermicro’s problems have nothing to do with its share price

For Supermicro, there are much larger concerns for investors than its share price being too high. The company’s margins have been under pressure and the Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly looking into the company after a short report in August alleged the company was involved in questionable accounting practices. Management has denied any wrongdoing and the DOJ investigation may not necessarily lead to anything substantive and consequential for the business and its investors.

The bigger issue, however, is that the company’s earnings may not grow at a high rate if Supermicro’s margins don’t improve. In its most recent earnings report, for the quarter ended June 30, the company’s gross margin was just 11%, down from an already fairly low rate of 17% a year ago. Low margins can negate much of the benefit the tech company will get from generating strong server sales and growing its operations, and that’s the biggest reason I’d be concerned about the stock right now.

Story continues

Is Supermicro stock a buy?

I don’t believe a stock split is going to save Supermicro stock nor do I think the DOJ probe is going to cripple it. Short reports are often biased and meritless and while they can temporarily send a stock lower, they rarely uncover disastrous findings auditors, analysts, and investors have all missed.

The company can put a lot of concerns to rest by simply posting strong earnings numbers and showing that it can grow both its top and bottom lines at high rates. But it still has to prove that it can do that.

Unless you’re comfortable with the risk that comes with owning Supermicro stock today, the safest option is to take a wait-and-see approach right now. The biggest question mark around the business remains its ability to grow its earnings, because if it can’t do that, it’s going to be hard to justify buying the AI stock.

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Will Super Micro Computer’s Stock Split Help Rally Its Shares? was originally published by The Motley Fool