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 :
13040 publications

ESCP Impact Papers

2020

COUTURIER, J., G., D. SOLA

Strategic Agility in a Time of Crisis

2020, ESCP Impact Papers

Journal Article

2020

LEHRER, M., S. SCHMID

Strategic Discipline: Inconspicuous Lessons from Germanic Mittelstand Firms

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY, 2020, vol. Vol. 41, Issue 4, pp. 3-9

Journal Article

2020

GRAF-VLACHY, L., C. KURZHALS, A. KÖNIG

Strategic Leadership and Technological Innovation: A Comprehensive Review and Research Agenda

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE - AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2020, vol. 28 (6), pp. 437-464

Textbook

2020

WHITTINGTON, R., P. REGNER, D. ANGWIN, G. JOHNSON, K. SCHOLES, F. FRÉRY

Stratégique, 12e édition

2020, Pearson, Paris, France

Journal Article

2020

DURACH, C., F., F. WIENGARTEN, T. Y. CHOI

Supplier–Supplier Co-opetition and Supply Chain Disruption: First-Tier Supplier Resilience in the Tetradic Context

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS AND PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, 2020, vol. Vol. 40 No. 7/8, pp. 1041-1065

Journal Article

2020

DURACH, C., F., F. WIENGARTEN

Supply Chain Integration and National Collectivism

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION ECONOMICS, 2020, vol. Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 107543

Chapter

2020

MONTEIL, P. -O.

Sur la culture du flux

in Pandémie 2020. Ethique, société, politique., Emmanuel Hirsch Ed., Cerf, pp. 375-378, 2020

Journal Article

2020

LUDEKE-FREUND, F.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Business Models: Integrative Framework and Propositions for Future Research

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, 2020, vol. 29 (2), pp. 665-681

Review of a book; an article; a research

2020

LAASCH, O.

Tackling doctoral education in responsible management: Resources for learning from ethical professors and intellectual shamans

2020, THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

Chapter

2020

MEZIANI, N.

Talking intuitions into existence: the role of ventriloquism figures

in Handbook of Intuition Research as Practice., Marta Sinclair Ed., Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 271-281, 2020