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

2018

CIRAVEGNA, L., L. KANO, F. RATTALINO, A. VERBEKE

Overcoming bifurcation bias and achieving family firm longevity: 700 years of Frescobaldi.

in 2018 Theories of Family Enterprise Conference, Centre for Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise, University of Alberta, 2018, Edmonton, Canada

Chapter

2018

ALEXANDRE-BAILLY, F., M. MURATBEKOVA-TOURON

Pantouflage

in The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity., Alena Ledeneva Ed., UCL Press, chap. Volume 2, entry 6.18, 2018

Chapter

2018

WHITING, R., H. ROBY, G. SYMON, P. CHAMAKIOTIS

Participant-led video diaries

in Unconventional Methodology in Organization and Management Research., A. Bryman and D.A. Buchanan (Eds.) Ed., Oxford University Press, pp. 190-210, 2018

Paper presented in a Conference

2018

VAN DEN BUSSCHE, P., C. DAMBRIN

Peer-to-peer evaluations as narcissistic devices: problematizing “communities” drawn from online platforms’ accountability relationships

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

Journal Article

2018

VARGHA, Z.

Performing a strategy's world: How redesigning customers made relationship banking possible

LONG RANGE PLANNING, 2018, vol. 51 (3), pp. 480-484

Journal Article

2018

MIMOUN, L., F. BARDHI

Permanent Liminality in Flexible Consumer Lifestyles

ADVANCES IN CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2018, vol. 46, pp. 214-219

Paper presented in a Conference

2018

ABADIE, A., S. BELGHITI, A. OCHS, J. -F. LEMOINE, O. BADOT

Platformization of the shopping experience: Field research and modelling”

in Colloquium on European Research in Retailing, 2018, Guildford, United Kingdom

Journal Article

2018

QUAGLIA, R., D. SOLA, G. SCARSO BORIOLI

Predicting GPs engagement with artificial intelligence

BRITISH JOURNAL OF HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 2018 Vol 24 No 3, no. Innovation in Healthcare, pp. 132-138

Journal Article

2018

MAUER, R., R. WUEBKER, J. SCHLÜTER, M. BRETTEL

Prediction and control: An agent-based simulation of search processes in the entrepreneurial problem space

STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOURNAL, 2018, vol. 12(2), pp. pp. 237-260

Journal Article

2018

DURACH, C., F., E. L. PAIVA

Present and future of Supply Chain and Operations Management: Special Issue from the 5th P&OM World Conference

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL DISTRIBUTION AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 48(10), pp. 974-975