Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette Art Thinking

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The Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette is all about bringing together artists and entrepreneurs, linking art with business in a new way.

It supports creative practices by connecting artists with entrepreneurs, businesses with cultural institutions, and artistic creation with business strategy. It encourages everyone to embrace the "improbable" to think like creators. Through a unique method called "Art Thinking," developed at ESCP, the Galeries Lafayette group and ESCP offer a way to support, encourage, and spread the act of creation.

 

Guillaume Houzé, Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette

A few words from
Guillaume Houzé
Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group

“The Improbable Chair is all about bringing together artists and entrepreneurs, linking art with business in a new way. It supports creative practices by connecting artists with entrepreneurs, businesses with cultural institutions, and artistic creation with business strategy. It encourages everyone to embrace the ‘improbable’ to think like creators. Through a unique method called ‘Art Thinking’, developed at ESCP, the Galeries Lafayette group and ESCP offer a way to support, encourage, and spread the act of creation.”

Guillaume Houzé, Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group Photo Credit: ©Lucasziwel

Sylvain Bureau, Scientific Director

A few words from
Sylvain Bureau
Professor at ESCP Business School
Scientific Director of the Improbable Chair

“Our initial belief was simple: to make creation accessible to as many people as possible. To achieve this, we developed a method called Art Thinking, which characterises how artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists go through similar steps in the creative process, such as gift-giving, deviating, destroying and drifting. For 15 years, our Art-Thinking seminars have trained thousands of students, entrepreneurs, managers, and researchers across a dozen countries and twenty universities and schools. Partnering with Galeries Lafayette group, a company with a strong entrepreneurial DNA, our chair combines theory and practice to amplify this approach and promote creators and creation in the broadest sense.”

Professor Sylvain Bureau, Scientific Director of the Improbable Chair

Objectives

The Chair has two major complementary goals:

  • Support scientific research to better understand creative practices
  • Teach the Art Thinking method and spread the Improbable pedagogy worldwide

Art Thinking not only helps participants unleash their innate creative potential; it also promotes collaboration, listening, leadership, negotiation, and constructive dialogue. Participants learn to question themselves, leverage failure, establish partnerships, and develop an agile approach to uncertainty.

Three areas of activity

Research and development

  • Scientific publications
  • Doctoral theses and final dissertations
  • Improbable Siesta: seminar bringing together researchers, artists, and experts in creation
Teaching

  • Spreading the Improbable method at ESCP and beyond
  • Designing initial training in Art Thinking
  • Training Art Thinking instructors
Events

  • Conferences and workshops on Art Thinking
  • Exhibitions and Improbable openings
  • Improbable residencies (art­ist/sci­en­tist/­en­tre­pre­neur triads)

“This Chair is the story of an encounter between visionary creators who understood early on how future generations of students and entrepreneurs would need artistic and creative practices to prepare for the world of tomorrow. Through this collaboration, ESCP is grateful to the Galeries Lafayette group for opening up new playgrounds for unprecedented and improbable creations!”

Pascale Pernet, Director of chairs and corporate sponsorship
ppernet@escp.eu

Focus on...

Group photo at the inauguration of the Improbable chair

Article

When Art meets Entrepreneurship

On Tuesday, 19th March 2024, Léon Laulusa, Dean and Executive President of ESCP, Jean-Stéphane Arcis, President of the ESCP Foundation, Philippe Houzé, Chairman of the Management Board of the Galeries Lafayette group, and Guillaume Houzé, Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group, signed the first Chair dedicated to artistic and entrepreneurial creation.

Display :
13052 publications

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

BOUDES, T., H. LAROCHE

Taking off the Heat : Sensemaking and Narration in Post Crisis Inquiry Reports

in Actes de la 15e Conférence Internationale de Management Stratégique, AIMS, 2006, Annecy

Chapter

2006

DONNAY DE CASTEAU, L.

Tax

in Belgique., Editions Francis Lefebvre Ed., Francis Lefebvre, vol. Collection Dossiers Internationaux, 2006

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

CALABRETTA, G., B. DURISIN

Technology Adoption: An integrative model of strategic factors driving the diffusion of innovation

in « Sustainable Marketing Leadership: A Synthesis of Polymorphous Axioms, Strategies and Tactics », Proceedings of the 34th EMAC Conference, 2006, Athens, Greece

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

DURISIN, B.

Technology Adoption: An integrative model of strategic factors driving the diffusion of innovation

in « Knowledge, Action, and the Public Concern », Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting, 2006, Atlanta, United States

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

CALABRETTA, G., B. DURISIN

Technology Adoption: An integrative model of strategic factors driving the diffusion of innovation

in « Energizing European Management », Proceedings of the European Academy of Management Conference (EURAM), 2006, Oslo, Norway

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

ANDREANI, F., J. -C. ANDREANI, F. ELEOUET , E. SAVART

Tendances du Marketing des Services et Implications pour les Secteurs de Santé

in International Marketing Trends Conference, 2006, Venice, Italy

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

LEON, E.

Territoriality in a non-territorial environment... How virtual can an office be ?

in Proceedings of the 22nd EGOS colloquium, 2006, Bergen

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

DAMBRIN, C., A. PEZET

Text and Artefacts for Creating a « World of Investment Decision-Making » - An Empirical Study into Investment Procedures

in Innovations in practice and research, Proceedings of the 5th Conference on new directions in management accounting, 2006, Brussels, Belgium

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

CHEVALIER, A., E. REDOR

The acquisition of non public firms in Europe: bidders' returns, payment methods and stock market evolution

in Proceedings of the European Financial Management Association (EFMA) 15th annual meeting, 2006, Madrid

Chapter

2006

HEILBRUNN, B.

The blandness and delights of a daily object

in Consuming Experience., CARU A., COVA B. (eds), Routledge, pp. pp 79-91 13 p, 2006