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

TAILLARD, M., L. D. PETERS, J. PELS, C. MELE

The role of shared intentions in the emergence of service ecosystems

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH, 2016, vol. Vol. 69, Issue 8, pp. pp. 2972–2980

Chapter

2016

BERTOLDI, B.

The Role of the Founder’s DNA throughout Crisis: The Revitalization of Moncler

in Global Marketing Strategies for the Promotion of Luxury Goods., Fabrizio Mosca, Rosalia Gallo Eds, IGI Global, pp. pp. 266-283 (18 p.), 2016

Journal Article

2016

COEURDEROY, R., A. VERBEKE

The Unbalanced Geography of the World's Largest MNES: Institutional Quality and Head Office Distribution Across Countries

GLOBAL STRATEGY JOURNAL, 2016, vol. 6, issue 2, pp. 127-148

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2016

EVANS, A., J.

The unintended consequences of easy money: How access to finance impedes entrepreneurship

REVIEW OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS (THE), 2016, vol. Vol. 29, Issue 3, pp. pp 233–252

Chapter

2016

CHAMAKIOTIS, P., N. PANTELI

The world is your office: Being creative in a global virtual organization

in Analyzing Digital Discourse and Human Behavior in Modern Virtual Environments., B. Baggio (Eds.) Ed., IGI Global, pp. 87-108, 2016

Journal Article

2016

RHODE, A. K.

The ‘Flower Men’ Phenomenon: Exploring the Cultural Encoding of Masculinity in South Korean Cosmetics Advertising

ADVANCES IN CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2016

Paper presented in a Conference

2016

RHODE, A. K.

The ‘Flower Men’ Phenomenon: Exploring the Cultural Encoding of Masculinity in South Korean Cosmetics Advertising

in North America ACR Conference, 2016, Berlin, Germany

Chapter

2016

FRÉRY, F.

Théorie et pratique en stratégie : après le divorce, la réconciliation ?

in A la pointe du management., BARTHELEMY J., MOTTIS N. Eds, Dunod, pp. pp. 168-179 (14 p.), 2016

Journal Article

2016

LAASCH, O., S. RANDLES

Theorising the normative business model (NBM)

ORGANIZATION AND ENVIRONMENT, 2016, vol. 29(1), pp. 53-73

Conference Proceedings

2016

ALONSO, G., I. PÉREZ GRANDE, I. TORRALBO, A. GÓMEZ-SANJUAN, G. FERNÁNDEZ-RICO

Thermal Design of the ESA Solar Orbiter Instrument PHI

in Procedings of 46th International Conference on Environmental Systems, International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2016, Vienna, Austria