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 :
13031 publications

Paper presented in a Conference

2024

SAULPIC, O., P. ZARLOWSKI

Involving healthcare professionals in the design of management tools requires a change of perspective on these tools

in 14th International Organisational Behaviour in Healthcare Conference, 2024, Norway

Journal Article

2024

EVANS, A., J.

Is Economic Familiarity a Necessary Prerequisite for Understanding Milton Friedman’s View of Shareholder Primacy?

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS EDUCATION, 2024

ESCP Impact Papers

2024

GRAZIOLI, F., F. MAZZOLA

Is the primary dealer system a gateway to information transfers? Evidence from the eurozone

2024, ESCP Impact Papers

Journal Article

2024

LIU, Y., T. J. H. MAYERHOFER, A. MARCHAND, T. FOSCHT, M. P. FRITZE, A. EISINGERICH

Is there a danger of making customers feel too empowered? Exploring the double-edged sword of customer orientation and creative benefits

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MARKETING, 2024, vol. 58 (11), pp. 2393–2425

Conference Proceedings

2024

SENANAYAKE, S., P. CHAMAKIOTIS

ITID influencing IS Adoption

in Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2024): Elevating Life through Digital Social Entrepreneurship, Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), 2024, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Debate; Point of view; Editorial,…

2024

VOYER, B., G.

January 18-20 2024., 23rd International Marketing Trends Conference, Venice, IT, moderator of the “new challenges in Luxury marketing” round table

2024, International Marketing Trends Conference

Review of a book; an article; a research

2024

EVANS, A., J.

John Kay and Mervyn King, Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2020. xvi + 528 Pages. 30.00 USD (hardback

2024, REVIEW OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS (THE)

Published Case Study

2024

LAPOULE, P.

JONAK

2024, CCMP, France

Journal Article

2024

CHANG-ZUNINO, M., S. GRODAL

Junkies, queers, and babies: Persistence and updating of the category AIDS through silencing and puncturing of the moral boundary

ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY, 2024, vol. 69 (3), pp. 571–618

ESCP Impact Papers

2024

COLLIN, B.

Key Challenges for business education in a rapidly changing world

2024, ESCP Impact Papers