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.
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
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
- Scientific publications
- Doctoral theses and final dissertations
- Improbable Siesta: seminar bringing together researchers, artists, and experts in creation
- Spreading the Improbable method at ESCP and beyond
- Designing initial training in Art Thinking
- Training Art Thinking instructors
- 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...

Article
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.
Paper presented in a Conference
2019
Top Managers' Career Variety and their Board Tenure: The Moderating Effect of International Education and In-House Work Experience
in 45th EIBA Annual Conference 2019, 2019, Leeds, United Kingdom
Journal Article
2019
Training effects on subsistence entrepreneurs’ hope and goal attainment
EDUCATION AND TRAINING, 2019, vol. Vol. 61 No. 7/8, pp. pp. 895-917
Guest Speaker in a Research Seminar
2019
Transforming commitment into social value in online health communities: Our journey with MedicineAfrica
Funded Workshop: ‘Exploring the educational value of digital health platforms: Insights from MedicineAfrica and Care Opinion’. 2019, Brighton, United Kingdom
Published Case Study
2019
Trendy Look : de la carte stratégique aux indicateurs de performance
2019, CCMP
Published Case Study
2019
Trendy Look : From Strategy Map to Performance Indicators
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Journal Article
2019
Un détour par l'imaginaire pour comprendre les fondements psychosociocognitifs de l'éducation entrepreneuriale
REVUE DE L'ENTREPRENEURIAT, 2019, vol. 18/1, pp. 109-140
Chapter
2019
Understanding cloud computing in a higher education context
in Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Network Architecture, Mobile Computing, and Data Analytics., M. Khosrow-Pour (Eds.) Ed., IGI Global, pp. 261-273, 2019
Conference Proceedings
2019
Understanding Customers' Propensity to Avoid Seeking Assistance: The Role of Individual Differences and Construct Measurement
in EMAC Annual conference, European Marketing Academy, 2019, University of Hamburg, Germany
Journal Article
2019
Understanding emerging adults' consumption of TV series in the digital age: a practice-theory-based approach
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH, 2019, vol. 95, pp. 253-265
Journal Article
2019
Understanding franchisee performance
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RETAIL AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT, 2019, vol. 47, 7, pp. 733-751