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

Paper presented in a Conference

2018

BOTTAUSCI, C., C. DAMBRIN, K. ROBSON

"Moral imaginaries of performance measurement systems in the pharmaceutical industry: Struggles and negotiations to definewhat is an agent and what is not"

in 12th Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, 2018, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Conference Proceedings

2018

DESLANDES, G.

"S'ils ont fait semblant.." Pour une critique de la condition managériale

in Valpré, GRACE, 2018, Lyon, France

Journal Article

2018

LAROCHE, H., F. ALLARD-POESI

"This is serious": Enacting authority during managerial conversations

M@N@GEMENT, 2018, vol. 21(1), pp. pp. 611-645

Paper presented in a Conference

2018

HANKACHE, A., M. FESTING, M. MURATBEKOVA-TOURON

A contextualized approach to personnel selection in Lebanon

in 15th International Human Resource Management Conference, 2018, Madrid, Spain

Conference Proceedings

2018

BICK, M., M. BÖCKLE, I. MICHEEL, J. NOVAK

A Design Framework for Adaptive Gamification Applications

in PROCEEDINGS OF THE HAWAII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES (HICSS), Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2018, Hawai, United States

Journal Article

2018

DURACH, C., F., J. , A. D. MACHUCA

A Matter of Perspective – The Role of Interpersonal Relationships in Supply Chain Risk Management

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS AND PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 38(10), pp. 1866-1887

Conference Proceedings

2018

VOYER, B., H. KIM

A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Brand Prominence

in ANZMAC Annual Conference, Australian & New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference (ANZMAC), 2018, Adelaide, Australia

Journal Article

2018

WILKEN, R., H. NAGLER, A. DE JONG, C. SCHMITZ

A multilevel approach to the process of concession-making in price negotiations

DIE UNTERNEHMUNG - SWISS JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 2018, vol. 72(1), pp. 37-50

Journal Article

2018

ALFES, K., A. , D. SHANTZ, A. RITZ

A multilevel examination of the relationship between role overload and employee subjective health: The buffering effect of support climates

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 57(2), pp. pp. 659-673

Journal Article

2018

SCHMIDT, M.

A Note on the Proprietary and Entity Perspectives in Financial Statements: The Implications for two Current Controversial Issues

ACCOUNTING IN EUROPE, 2018, vol. 15 (1), pp. 134–147