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

TROEGE, M., J. JIN, R. AMIR

On the Limits of Free Trade in a Cournot World: When are Restrictions on Trade beneficial?

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS / REVUE CANADIENNE D'ECONOMIQUE, 2022, vol. 55(4), pp. 2036-2057

Journal Article

2022

DOBUSCH, L., N. KÖSTER, E. SCHÄFER, C. SECKLER

Open About Organizational Failure: A Communication Perspective on Postmortem Impression Management

LONG RANGE PLANNING, 2022, vol. 55 (6), pp. 102176

Paper presented in a Conference

2022

BOUILLOUD, J. -P.

Organisation du colloque "Consentir : Pourquoi, comment et à quoi?"

in Consentir : Pourquoi, comment et à quoi?, 2022, Paris, France

Other contribution

2022

BOUILLOUD, J. -P.

Organisation du colloque "La sociologie clinique et le politique", ESCP, 22-24 juin 2022

2022, organisation de colloque

Journal Article

2022

RODRIGO, L., D. , P. PEREZ ARECHAEDERRA, M. PALACIOS, J. ROMERO

Organisational commitment in the digital social innovation context: does qualitative comparative analysis add information to linear regression?

TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGES, 2022, vol. 179, pp. 1-9

Paper presented in a Conference

2022

SOBREPERE, X.

Organizational Response to Performance Shortfalls: The Role of Decision Makers’ Self-confidence and Time Slack

in Academy of Management Annual Conference, 2022, Seattle, United States

Journal Article

2022

KASTANAKIS, M., S. MAGRIZOS, K. KAMPOURI

Pain (and pleasure) in marketing and consumption: An integrative literature review and directions for future research

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH, 2022, vol. 140, pp. 189-201

Book

2022

DE GEUSER, F., O. TRUONG, Y. JAIDI, O. STORCH

Panne de sens

Dunod, France, 2022

Journal Article

2022

FESTING, M., K. SALMEN

Paving the way for progress in employee agility research: A systematic literature review and framework

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, 2022, vol. 33(22), no. New ways of working: Understanding the implications for employees across different cultural and organisational contexts, pp. 4386-4439

Journal Article

2022

ZHOU, W., F. FEIPAN, S. PAN, T. FAN

Perishable product bundling with logistics uncertainty: Solution based on physical internet

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION ECONOMICS, 2022, vol. 244, pp. 108386