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

2015

SUCCI, C., M. CINQUE

Hard Findings on Soft Skills

in Proceedings of the Annual Conference Human Resource Management and Professional Development in the Digital Age, 2015, Singapore, Singapore

Journal Article

2015

CREEL, J., P. HUBERT

Has Inflation Targeting Changed the Conduct of Monetary Policy ?

MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS, 2015, vol. N° 19, pp. pp. 1-21 (21 p.)

Other contribution

2015

JALLAT, F.

Healthcare Education, Research & Exchange e-platform

2015, ERS Healthcare Innovation

Paper presented in a Conference

2015

PUCCIARELLI, F.

Higher Education in the 21st Century

in Proceedings of the 4th European Business Research Conference, 2015, London, United Kingdom

Book

2015

WOLTON, T.

Histoire mondiale du communisme

Grasset, 2015

Journal Article

2015

BAKER, C. R., B. QUÉRÉ

Historical Innovations in the Regulation of Business and Accounting Practices: A Comparison of Absolutism and LIberal Democracy.

ACCOUNTING HISTORY, 2015, vol. 20, pp. 250.265

Conference Proceedings

2015

JACOB, F., S. SCHÄTZLE, F. ZERBINI

Home country a s cue in cross-border supplier assessment

in Procedings European Marketing Academy Conference, European Marketing Academy, 2015, Leuven, Belgium

Journal Article

2015

SOUFANI, K., T. TSE, M. ESPOSITO

How companies can benefit from the circular economy

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW, 2015

Paper presented in a Conference

2015

JIANG, Y., C.-C. RÜLING

How do Different Reasoning Processes Drive Business Model Innovations in Entrepreneurial Settings

in Procedings of 75th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 2015, Vancouver, Canada

Journal Article

2015

SOLA, D., J. , G. COUTURIER

How innovations will boost adult immunisation programmes in the UK

BRITISH JOURNAL OF HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT, 2015, vol. vol.21, pp. pp. 225-229