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

2016

MIMRA, W., A. WAMBACH

A Note on Uniqueness in Game-theoretic Foundations of the Reactive Equilibrium

ECONOMICS LETTERS, 2016, vol. 141, pp. 39-43

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2016

DOUMPOS, M., E. GALARIOTIS, A. GUYOT, C. ZOPOUNIDIS

A novel multi- attribute benchmarking approach for assessing the financial performance of local governments: Empirical evidence from France

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH, 2016, vol. 248(1), pp. 301-317

Chapter

2016

REIS, R., S., L. M. SPINOSA, M. SCHLEMM

A process-based approach to support entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem management – A Brazilian Trial

in Process approach to academic entrepreneurship: evidence from the globe., R. Fini & R. Grimaldi Ed., World Scientific, 2016

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2016

HOSSFELD, C., J.-F. FEUILLET

Adaptation, transformation, innovation: 3 mots-clés pour la "nouvelle" BFI

ANALYSE FINANCIERE, 2016, vol. no 58, pp. 37-39

Journal Article

2016

BICK, M., T. BLESIK

Adoption Factors for Crowdsourcing Based Medical Information Platforms

LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2016, vol. 9983, pp. 172-184

Journal Article

2016

BARRIOS FERNANDEZ, C., F. FABREGUES OLIVER

ÁFRICA SUBSAHARIANA EN 2015, AÑO DE ELECCIONES: ¿SOLUCIÓN O PROBLEMA?

ANUARIO INTERNACIONAL CIDOB, 2016

Journal Article

2016

PRANGE, C.

Agile Management as the Discovery of Slowness?

ZEITSCHRIFT FUER ORGANISATION, 2016

Published Case Study

2016

SAULPIC, O., C. DAMBRIN, B. DUGAS, F. , L. N. GIRAUD, P. ZARLOWSKI

Air Utopia

2016, CCMP

Research Monograph (Working papers)

2016

SCHMID, S., T. DAUTH, T. KOTULLA, F. ORBAN

Aldi and Lidl: From Germany to the Rest of the World?

ESCP Europe Working Paper, no. No. 65, 2016

Journal Article

2016

HAHN, T., J. PINKSE, L. PREUSS, F. FIGGE

Ambidexterity for Corporate Social Performance

ORGANIZATION STUDIES, 2016, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 213-235