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

1999

MENDOZA, C., P.-L. BESCOS

Contrôle de gestion, qualité des informations pour la prise de décision et facteurs de contingence

in Actes du 20e Congrès de l'Association Française de Comptabilité, 1999, Bordeaux, France

Journal Article

1999

NAULLEAU, G.

Contrôle de gestion, une approche plus globale de la performance.

BANQUE MAGAZINE, July 1999, pp. pp 50-52 3p

Chapter

1999

COLLA, E.

Coop in Italy and the Low Price Challenge 

in European Cases in Retailing., Marc Dupuis et John Dawson Ed., Blackwell, pp. 190-205, 1999

PhD Dissertation

1999

DÍAZ, C.

Coordinación de políticas económicas en una unión monetaria

1999, Universidad Pública de Navarra

Chapter

1999

SAUSSOIS, J.-M.

Coordonner, coopérer, adhérer: les enjeux du management

in Les organisations. Etat des savoirs., CABIN P. (ed.), Editions Sciences Humaines, pp. pp 149-154 5 p, 1999

Journal Article

1999

BALAZS, K., M. F. R. KETS DE VRIES

Creating the 'Authentizotic' Organization: Corporate Transformation and its Vicissitudes-A Rejoinder

ADMINISTRATION AND SOCIETY, 1999, pp. pp 275-294 20 p

Paper presented in a Conference

1999

PRIME, N.

Cross-Cultural Management in South-African Companies: problems, Obstacles and Agenda

in Proceedings of the 7th Symposium on Cross-Cultural Consumer and Business Studies Conference, 1999, Cancun

Research Monograph (Working papers)

1999

KUPP, M., A. FAIX

Die Operationalisierung von Kernkompetenzen

Institut für Markt- und Distributionsforschung, Universität, 1999

Research Monograph (Working papers)

1999

SCHMID, S., M. GOUTHIER

Dienstleistungskunden: Ressourcen im Sinne des resource-based-view des Strategischen Managements?

Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Working Paper, no. No. 131, 1999

Book

1999

ORTIZ, I.

Dirección de empresas pequeñas y medianas en el siglo XXI

LID Editorial Empresarial, 1999