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 :
13042 publications

Conference Proceedings

2019

CIRAVEGNA, L., F. RATTALINO, L. KANO

The Smiling Curve of Value Creation in Family MNEs: The Impact of Bifurcation Bias

in AIB 2019 Annual Meeting, Academy of International Business (AIB), 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark

Journal Article

2019

CISI, M., V. DOLCE, F. EMANUEL, C. GHISLIERI

The soft skills of accounting graduates: perceptions versus expectations

ACCOUNTING EDUCATION, 2019, pp. 1-20

Journal Article

2019

WINANT, P., R. MASOLO

The Stochastic Lower Bound

ECONOMICS LETTERS, 2019, vol. 180, pp. 54-57

Journal Article

2019

FIGGE, F., A. S. THORPE

The symbiotic rebound effect in the circular economy

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS, 2019, vol. 163, pp. 61-69

Chapter

2019

GETZ, I.

The transformation: how Michelin redefined the twenty-first century industrial corporation

in The Transformation Playbook: Insights, Wisdom and Best Practices to Make Transformation Reality., S. Crainer Ed., Project Management Institute (PMI), 2019

Journal Article

2019

SAHAKIANTS, I., M. FESTING

The use of executive share-based compensation in Poland: investigating institutional and agency-based determinants in an emerging market

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, 2019, vol. 30(6), pp. 1036-1057

Journal Article

2019

MAGGIONI, I., S. SANDS, C. FERRARO, C. JEBARAJAKIRTHY, M. DHARMESTI

The vice and virtue of on-the-go consumption: An exploratory segmentation

JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES, 2019, vol. 51, pp. 399-408

Paper presented in a Conference

2019

DE GEUSER, F., S. DESCHAINTRE

Theoretical borrowing, not butterflying. The case for ergonomics in management control

in APIRA, 2019, Auckland, New Zealand

Paper presented in a Conference

2019

SCHMID, S., S. MITTERREITER

Top Managers' Career Variety - Effects on their Board Tenure

in 10th EIASM Workshop on Top Management Teams and Business Strategy Research, 2019, Passau, Germany

Paper presented in a Conference

2019

SCHMID, S., S. MITTERREITER

Top Managers' Career Variety and their Board Tenure: The Moderating Effect of International Education and In-House Work Experience

in 15th Vaasa Conference on International Business, 2019, Vaasa, Finland