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

Journal Article

2017

BOOTH, J. E., D. LUP, M. WILLIAMS

Labor Unions and the Community: Union Membership and Charitable Giving in the United States

INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, 2017, vol. 70(4), pp. 835–864

Journal Article

2017

WU, T., F. CHU, Z. ZHILI, W. ZHOU

Lagrangean relaxation and hybrid simulated annealing tabu search procedure for a two-echelon capacitated facility location problem with plant size selection

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION RESEARCH, 2017, vol. 55 (9), pp. 2540 - 2555

Journal Article

2017

PINOT DE VILLECHENON, F.

Latin-American SMEs: The challenge of growing far away from home and even more in the European market

EU-LAC NEWSLETTER ARTICLES, 2017, no. Investment and Entrepreneurship, pp. 11-13

Chapter

2017

CARBONE, V.

Le courant sociologique de la théorie néo-institutionnelle : cadre pertinent pour l’analyse des effets de la crise sur les pays à croissance rapide ?

in Les organisations face aux transitions internationales., Millot E., Nivoix S. et Lemaire J.P. Eds, Vuibert, 2017

Guest Speaker in a Conference

2017

PINOT DE VILLECHENON, F.

Le développement des PME françaises et européennes, sous l’angle de la recherche en management

2017, Business France, Paris, France

Paper presented in a Conference

2017

SAULPIC, O., P. ZARLOWSKI

Le dialogue de gestion avec les pôles : analyse et propositions à partir de l’étude d’un groupe hospitalier universitaire

in 7ème Colloque Santé, 2017, Marseille, France

Paper presented in a Conference

2017

GALINDO, G., E. LEON, J. LAMRI

Le lab RH ou l'innovation à tous les étages

in 28ème Congrès AGRH, 2017, Aix-en-Provence, France

TV Appearance

2017

DESLANDES, G.

Le management face aux schémas obsolètes de la cybernétique

Xerfi canal, 2017

Paper presented in a Conference

2017

FRÉRY, F.

Le management stratégique en France : chronique d'un déclin annoncé ?

in 26e Conférence Internationale de Management Stratégique, 2017, Lyon, France

Book

2017

HEILBRUNN, B.

Le marketing pour les nuls en 50 notions clés

FIRST, 2017