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.
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
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
- Scientific publications
- Doctoral theses and final dissertations
- Improbable Siesta: seminar bringing together researchers, artists, and experts in creation
- Spreading the Improbable method at ESCP and beyond
- Designing initial training in Art Thinking
- Training Art Thinking instructors
- 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...

Article
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.
Conference Proceedings
2002
(Untitled contribution)
Paper presented in a Conference
2002
A contribution to the theoretical frameworks guiding management control system design
in Proceedings of the 25th Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, 2002, Copenhagen
Journal Article
2002
A framework for strategic control and planning in corporate organisations
CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH, April 2002, pp. pp 45-65 21 p
Paper presented in a Conference
2002
Accountability e comunicazione ambientale. Evidenze empiriche e linee evolutive.
in COMPETIZIONE GLOBALE E SVILUPPO LOCALE TRA ETICA E INNOVAZIONE., 2002, Novara, Italy
Journal Article
2002
Activités de service
REVUE FRANCAISE DU MARKETING, 2002, vol. n° 188, pp. pp 1-104 98 p
Textbook
2002
Annales de l'examen d'aptitude aux fonctions de commissaire aux comptes 2002
2002, CNCC, Paris, France
Published Case Study
2002
Anthrax, Aids and the Issue of Intellectual Property Rights
2002, Business cases
Chapter
2002
Anticiper pour mieux se développer
in Regards croisés sur le coaching., FORESTIER G. (ed.), Editions d'Organisation, pp. pp 258-264 7 p, 2002
Journal Article
2002
Audience Characteristics and Bundling: A Hedonic Analysis of Magazine Advertising Rates
JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, 2002, vol. 39 (3), pp. 262-273
Journal Article
2002
Ausgewählte neuerungen in der französischen Konzernrechnungslegung
WIRTSCHAFTSPRUFUNG (DIE), September 2002, pp. pp 450-461 12 p