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.
Conference Proceedings
2018
The paradox of family firm longevity: 700 years of Frescobaldi
in Improving Lives, Academy of Management (AOM), 2018, Chicago, United States
Journal Article
2018
The performativity of strategy: Taking stock and moving ahead
LONG RANGE PLANNING, 2018, vol. 51, 3, no. 3, pp. 407-416
Journal Article
2018
The phenomenon of young talent management in Russia - A context-embedded analysis
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 57(2), pp. pp. 437-455
Journal Article
2018
The relationship between perceived training and development and employee retention: the mediating role of work attitudes. In: International Journal of Human Resource Management
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, 2018, vol. 29(18), pp. 2728
Journal Article
2018
The role of R&D investments and export on SMEs’ growth: a domain ambidexterity perspective.
MANAGEMENT DECISION, 2018, vol. 56 (9), pp. 1883-1903
Journal Article
2018
The sustainable business model pattern taxonomy—45 patterns to support sustainability-oriented business model innovation
SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION, 2018, vol. 15, pp. 145-162
Chapter
2018
Threshold Discounting: Operational Benefits, Potential Drawbacks, and Optimal Design
in Sharing Economy., Ming Hu Ed., Springer, 2018
Guest Speaker in a Research Seminar
2018
Time to fly the nest: toward an operational social epistemology
Atelier du GRÉ. 2018, Paris, France
Journal Article
2018
Trends and patterns in sustainability-related media coverage: A classification of issue-level attention
ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING C, 2018, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 937-962
Paper presented in a Conference
2018
Two tools with which to unpick the dynamics of student entrepreneurial teams
in Conference in Entrepreneuriship education experience and research, 2018, Cagliari, Italy