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

Contribution on blogs and Social Networks

2014

MAKOWSKI, T., C. SUNIL, F. WALTER

The new magic word in Procurement

2014, Harvard Business Manager

Journal Article

2014

BLASCO-ARCAS, L., B. HERNANDEZ-ORTEGA, J. JIMENEZ-MARTINEZ

The online purchase as a context for co-creating experiences: drivers of and consequences for customer behavior

INTERNET RESEARCH, 2014, vol. 24 (3), pp. 393 - 412

Journal Article

2014

SCAGNELLI, S. D.

The Open Access Model, Trends and Opportunities in Accounting Research

OPEN JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING, 2014

Paper presented in a Conference

2014

SHANTZ, A., K. ALFES, D. OBERSKI

The Perpetuity of Overqualification and the Modifying Effects of Age and Gender

in Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 2014, Philadelphia, United States

Journal Article

2014

GASTON-BRETON, C., P. RAGHUBIR

The price knowledge paradox: Why consumers have lower confidence in, but better recall of unfamiliar prices

CUSTOMER NEEDS AND SOLUTIONS, 2014, vol. 1, 1, pp. 214-224

Book

2014

HARZING, A. -W., A. , H. PINNINGTON

The Publish or Perish Book

Sage, Los Angeles, 2014

Conference Proceedings

2014

WHITING, R., H. ROBY, P. CHAMAKIOTIS, G. SYMON

The researcher within participant videos: The not so ‘absent’ presence

in The Role of the Business School in Supporting Economic and Social Development, British Academy of Management, 2014, Belfast, United Kingdom

Journal Article

2014

JOFFRAIN, W.

The risks of Euro for the European Union

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW ITALIA, 2014

Guest Speaker in a Research Seminar

2014

VOYER, B., G., M. TAILLARD, V. GLAVEANU

The Role of Consumer Creativity in the Value Creation Process: A Conceptual Framework

CMC Research day. 2014

Paper presented in a Conference

2014

RASKOVIC, M., M. ČERNE, A. PUSTOVRH, D. DIKOVA, A. JAKLIC

The role of proactive market orientation in the internationalization of high­tech SMEs : the case of Slovenia

in Competitiveness of the CEE Region in the Global Economy., 2014, Budapest, Hungary