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 :
13034 publications

Journal Article

2022

DAVOINE, E., S. SCHMID

Career Patterns of Top Managers in Europe: Signs of Further Globalisation?

EUROPEAN MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, 2022, vol. Vol. 40, Issue 4, pp. 467-474

Research Monograph (Working papers)

2022

PINA, G., K. J. MITCHENER

Causal Effects of Countercyclical Interest Rates: Evidence from the Classical Gold Standard

NBER / NBER Working Papers, 2022

Journal Article

2022

MOUSSU, C., K. HATOUM, R. GILLET

CEO overconfidence: Towards a new measure

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF FINANCIAL ANALYSIS, 2022, vol. 84

Conference Proceedings

2022

CHEKROUN, D.

Challenges for Corporate Board Members in 2022

in Challenges for Corporate Board Members in 2022, ESCP, 2022, Paris, France

ESCP Impact Papers

2022

BUNKANWANICHA, P., D. , A. ABELLÁN MARTÍNEZ

Challenges with the rise of superstar firms

2022, ESCP Impact Papers

Paper presented in a Conference

2022

SUCCI, C., G. MAREGA, L. BERTOLA

Change the rules of the game: Strategies for women to break the glass ceiling in financial services

in Academy of International Business, 2022, Miami, United States

Chapter

2022

GALINDO, G.

Chapitre 2. Non, le sujet de la religion au travail n’est pas tombé du ciel : paradoxes et facteurs accélérateurs

in Religion, Fait religieux et Management., Gaillard H., Galindo G. & Honoré L Eds, EMS Editions, 2022

Journal Article

2022

PREECE, C., L. WHITTAKER, S. JANES

Choose your own future: The sociotechnical imaginaries of virtual reality

JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT, 2022, vol. 38 (15-16), pp. 1777-1795

Journal Article

2022

MIMOUN, L., F. BARDHI

Chronic Consumer Liminality: Being Flexible in Precarious Times

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2022

Conference Proceedings

2022

COFFMAN, C., A. SYDOW, S. SUNNY

Coffman, C. D., Sydow, A., & Sunny, S. A. (2022). The Effect of Institutional Level on Embedded Agency Among Institutional Entrepreneurs

in Creating A Better World Together, Academy of Management (AOM), 2022, Seattle, United States