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 :
13037 publications

Journal Article

2021

VENUTI, F., S. BRUNELLI, C. FALIVENA, C. CARLINO

Accountability for climate change: a research synthesis through the lenses of the integrated thinking approach

MEDITARI ACCOUNTANCY RESEARCH, 2021, vol. 29(4), pp. 1005-1038

Paper presented in a Conference

2021

CLAVIJO, N., C. DAMBRIN

Accounting care as a collective resistance to gendered norms at work

in 13th Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, 2021, online conference, Austria

ESCP Impact Papers

2021

PRONOBIS, P., M., F. VENUTI

Accounting for Sustainability: Current Initiatives to Standardize ESG Reporting

2021, ESCP Impact Papers

Journal Article

2021

FILIP, A., A. GHIO, L. PAUGAM

Accounting information in innovative small cap firms: evidence from London’s Alternative Investment Market

ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS RESEARCH, 2021, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 421-456

Paper presented in a Conference

2021

NEJADHOSSEINI SOUDANI, S.

Accounting, Religion, and Politics

in European Accounting Association (EAA) Congress, 2021, Bucharest, Romania

Journal Article

2021

HOHN, M., C. , F. DURACH

Additive Manufacturing in the Apparel Supply Chain — Impact on Supply Chain Governance and Social Sustainability

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS AND PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, 2021, vol. 41(7), pp. 1035-1069

Journal Article

2021

TROEGE, M., R. AMIR, D. MACHOWSKA

Advertising patterns in a dynamic oligopolistic growing market with decay

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC DYNAMICS AND CONTROL, 2021, vol. Vol. 131

ESCP Impact Papers

2021

BLASCO-ARCAS, L., H. -H. M. LEE

AI, Friend or Foe? A Proposal for a Human-Centered Approach to AI Business Implications

2021, ESCP Impact Papers

Journal Article

2021

BATTAGLIA, D., P. NEIROTTI, D. PESCE

Algorithms for operational decision-making: An absorptive capacity perspective on the process of converting data into relevant knowledge.

TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGES, 2021, vol. 173, 121088

Conference Proceedings

2021

DE BERNARDI, C., A. SYDOW

Am I an environmental entrepreneur? On the evolution of entrepreneurial identity

in Bringing the Manager back in Management, Academy of Management (AOM), 2021, Virtual Conference, United States