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

Book

1992

COLLA, E.

Gli ipermercati. Sviluppo e maturità delle grandi superfici di vendita in Italia e in Europa.

EtasLibri, Milan, Italy, 1992

Radio Talk

1992

PINOT DE VILLECHENON, F.

Histoire des expositions universelles

1992, RFI - série de 10 émissions diffusées 30 mars - 10 avril 1992, France

Research Monograph (Working papers)

1992

GETZ, I.

Human information processing and information systems

Document de travail, no. 92-113, 1992

Journal Article

1992

GETZ, I.

Human information processing and information systems

ACTA OECONOMICA PRAGENSIA, 1992, pp. pp 141-161 21 p

Paper presented in a Conference

1992

MIKOL, A.

L'évolution du commissariat aux comptes et l'audit

in Actes du Congrès de l'Association Française de Comptabilité, 1992, Bordeaux, France

Radio Talk

1992

PINOT DE VILLECHENON, F.

L'Exposition Universelle de Séville

1992, France Culture - Invitée du Jour, France

Chapter

1992

SAUSSOIS, J.-M.

L'invention de la grande entreprise

in L'entreprise, une affaire de société., SAINSAULIEU R. (ed.), Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, pp. pp 31-45 15 p, 1992

Journal Article

1992

BONIS, J., L. CADIN, A. MEIGNANT, B. MARTORY, D. THIERRY, B. MONTEIL, V. GUILLOUX, J.-C. WEISBECKER

La fonction ressources humaines est-elle stratégique ?

PERSONNEL, October 1992, vol. n°336, pp. 61 p

Book

1992

LEFEBVRE, M., D. ROTENBERG

La genèse du nouvel ordre mondial: De l'invasion de l'Afghanistan à l'effondrement du communisme

Ellipses Marketing, Paris, 1992

Journal Article

1992

PETIT, M., F. BOURNOIS

La gestion des ressources humaines en Allemagne

PERSONNEL, March 1992, vol. n°331, pp. pp 50-59 10p