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

2017

BOUDES, T., R. BEAUJOLIN, N. RAULET-CROSET

Multi-shadowing the followers during hunting with hounds: co-constructing vulnerabilities

in the 12th Annual International Ethnography Symposium, 2017, Manchester, United Kingdom

TV Appearance

2017

DESLANDES, G.

Naviguer sur l’océan de la mondialisation

Xerfi canal, 2017, vol. /

Journal Article

2017

FEL, F., E. GRIETTE

Near-reshoring your supplies from China : a good deal for financial motives too

STRATEGIC DIRECTION, 2017, vol. vol 33, issue 2, pp. 24-26

Journal Article

2017

BASSE MAMA, H., A. BASSEN

Neglected Disciplinary Effects of Investor Relations: Evidence from Corporate Cash Holdings

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS, 2017, vol. Vol. 87, Issue 2, pp. pp. 221-261

Conference Proceedings

2017

KANO, L., L. CIRAVEGNA, F. RATTALINO

New internationalization theory and family governance

in Annual Conference, Milan, 2017, European International Business Academy (EIBA), 2017, Milan, Italy

Published Case Study

2017

KUPP, M., S. CHUBBS

Nucor Corporation: How to achieve long-term profitable growth?

2017, The Case Centre

Debate; Point of view; Editorial,…

2017

VOYER, B.

On corporate ethics and consumer decision making

2017, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Contribution on blogs and Social Networks

2017

CASANUEVA, C.

Opseeker

2017, www.opseeker.com, Spain

Journal Article

2017

BATTAGLIA, D., P. LANDONI, F. RIZZITELLI

Organizational structures for external growth of University Technology Transfer Offices: An explorative analysis.

TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGES, 2017, vol. 123, pp. 45-56

Paper presented in a Conference

2017

SOBREPERE, X., A. ARIÑO, J. REUER, B. TYLER

Organizations as a Reflection of its Top Managers; Unless They Have Belonged to the Organization for Too Long – Empirical Study of Managers’ Evaluations

in Workshop on Top Management Teams and Business Strategy Research, 2017, Seville, Spain