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 :
13041 publications

Journal Article

2018

GOND, J. -P., L. CABANTOUS, F. KRIKORIAN

How do things become strategic? ‘Strategifying’ corporate social responsibility

STRATEGIC ORGANIZATION, 2018, vol. 16, 3, no. 3, pp. 241-272

Conference Proceedings

2018

LUI, G.

How Easy is it for the IRS to Reconstruct a Taxpayer's Income?

in Academy of Business Research Conference, Academy of Business Research Conference Proceeding, 2018, San Antonio, United States

Journal Article

2018

JACOB, F., K. L. HARTWIG

How individuals assess value-in-use: theoretical discussion and empirical investigation

MARKETING ZFP - JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 40(3), pp. 43-62

Chapter

2018

GILBERT, P., N. RAULET-CROSET, A. -C. TEGLBORG

How the Materialization of a Managerial Model Contributes to its Take Up: The Case of ‘Liberating Management’ in France

in Materiality and Managerial Techniques., Nathalie Mitev, Anna Morgan, Thomas, Philippe Lorino, Francois-Xavier de Vaujany and Yesh Nama Eds, Springer, pp. 281-305, 2018

Journal Article

2018

LEMOINE, J., E., R. VAN DICK, N. , K. STEFFENS, R. KERSCHREITER, S. ARSLAN AKFIRAT, L. AVANZI, A. HASLAM

Identity leadership going global: Validation of the Identity Leadership Inventory across 20 countries

Forthcoming JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Research Monograph (Working papers)

2018

FRIEDRICH, J., M. THIEMANN, C. RESCH

If you do it, do it right: The need for a common European supervisory architecture for CCPs

Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, 2018

Journal Article

2018

CISI, M.

Il bilancio integrato quale strumento di disclosure

Diritto ed Economia dell’Impresa, 2018, vol. 1-2018

Edited Special Issue

2018

MOUSSU, C., P.-C. PRADIER

Il y a 10 ans la crise: la régulation financière et ses nouveaux enjeux

2018, REALITES INDUSTRIELLES

Journal Article

2018

MOUSSU, C.

Il y a 10 ans la crise: la régulation financière et ses nouveaux enjeux- Introduction

REALITES INDUSTRIELLES, 2018, pp. p.5-6

Journal Article

2018

LEMAIRE, J. -P.

Inbound foreign direct investment in Japan : A typology

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW, 2018, vol. 27 (2), pp. 431-442