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.
Journal Article
2002
Research and managerial issues on global retail competition : Carrefour/Wal/Mart
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RETAIL AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT, 2002, vol. 30, 2-3, pp. 103-111.
Review of a book; an article; a research
2002
Review of CALLON M., LASCOURNES P., BARTHE Y., Agir dans un monde incertain: Essai sur la démocratie technique, Seuil, Collection La Couleur des idées, Paris, 2001
2002, JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Journal Article
2002
Serum Concentration of APO-1/Fas and Interleukin-1ß-converting Enzyme in Osteosarcoma Correlate with Response to Chemotherapy
ANTICANCER RESEARCH, 2002, vol. 22, pp. 1869-1873
Journal Article
2002
Sexe, genre et marketing
DM - DECISIONS MARKETING, April 2002, pp. pp 55-69 15p
Book
2002
Si la GRH était de la gestion
Entreprise et carrières, Paris, France, 2002
Published Case Study
2002
Smurfit Paper Company (SPC)
2002, Centrale de Cas et de Médias Pédagogiques, France
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2002
Sony - Camera Pan & Tilt
2002, Centrale de Cas et de Médias Pédagogiques, France
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2002
Spain
in Building Chaos: Regulation and Deregulation in the Building Industry., Gerhard Bosch and Peter Philips Ed., New York and London: Routledge, pp. pp. 138-160, 2002
Paper presented in a Conference
2002
Statistics education for future managers: Needs obstacles and possible solutions
in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of Teaching Statistics (ICOTS), 2002, Capetown
Chapter
2002
Strategic management and management control
in Performance measurement and management control., EPSTEIN M. J., MANZONI J.-F. (eds), JAI Press, pp. pp. 131-158 28 p., 2002