Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette Art Thinking

See this page in
French[FR]

 



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 :
13042 publications

Chapter

2020

KASSIS HENDERSON, J., L. COHEN

From the Multilingual Classroom to the Multilingual Workplace: Learning to View Language through a Different Lens

in Managing Multilingual Workplaces: Empirical, Methodological and Pedagogic Perspectives., Sierk Horn, Philippe Lecomte and Susanne Tietze Eds, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, pp. 236, 2020

Debate; Point of view; Editorial,…

2020

LAULUSA, L.

FT MiM ranking 2020: analysis

2020, FINANCIAL TIMES

Conference Proceedings

2020

CHEKROUN, D.

Fusions-acquisitions : Quelles sont les clés pour réussir un rapprochement d’entreprises en période de crise ?

in Les Rencontres M&A sur le thème : quel rebond après la crise ?, Option Finance - Les Rencontres, 2020, Online, France

Guest Speaker in a Research Seminar

2020

BADOT, O.

Future of retail in society 4.0. Findings and discussions

Paper presented at the School of Management of the University of Stirling. 2020, Stirling, United Kingdom

Contribution on blogs and Social Networks

2020

RICHET, C.

future of value creation in FMCG

2020, LinkedIn

Chapter

2020

VIEILLE, E.

GAR Guide The Guide to M&A Arbitration - Third Edition

in The Guide to M&A Arbitration., Amy C Kläsener Ed., Law Business Research, 2020

Book

2020

PINA, G.

GDP‑linked bonds in the Portuguese Economy

Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, 2020

Journal Article

2020

KAHALE, N.

General multilevel Monte Carlo methods for pricing discretely monitored Asian options

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH, 2020, vol. Volume 287 Issue 2, pp. 739-748

Contribution on blogs and Social Networks

2020

SECKLER, C.

Gescheiterte Unternehmen haben mehr gemeinsam als man denkt – aber Scheitern kann verhindert werden

2020, THE CONVERSATION

Contribution on blogs and Social Networks

2020

DE GEUSER, F., O. TRUONG

Gestes barrières de la bienveillance et de la confiance pour réussir le déconfinement du nouveau monde «phygital »

2020, care-and-connect.fr