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 :
13045 publications

Journal Article

2012

STEYER, V., H. LAROCHE

Le virus du doute : décision et sensemaking dans une cellule de crise

REVUE FRANCAISE DE GESTION, June 2012, vol. vol. 38, n° 225, pp. pp. 167-186 20 p.

Published Case Study

2012

LAPOULE, P.

Leclerc : négocier pour rester le moins cher

2012, CCMP, Paris, France

Journal Article

2012

CALLIANO, O.

Legal strategies for the internationalization of SMEs. A managerial Analysis of knowledge for transnational contracts

IL NUOVO DIRITTO DELLE SOCIETA, 2012

Published Case Study

2012

BOUDES, T.

Les agences de notation financière : l'ABC du AAA

2012, Centrale de Cas et de Médias Pédagogiques, France

Chapter

2012

BOUDES, T.

Les bons contes font-ils aussi les bons managers ?

in Les organisations : état des savoirs., SAUSSOIS J.-M. (ed.), Editions Sciences Humaines, pp. pp. 361-374 14 p., 2012

Book

2012

S. GUINCHARD

Les Champions Cachés du XXIe Siècle : Stratégies à succès

ECONOMICA, 2012

Paper presented in a Conference

2012

RADICA, G.

Les conditions économiques de la paix

in Colloque sur Rousseau, le républicanisme et la paix, 2012, Genève, Switzerland

Journal Article

2012

ROUQUET, A.

Les consommateurs, acteurs des chaînes logistiques

SUPPLY CHAIN MAGAZINE, 2012

Chapter

2012

LAROCHE, H.

Les décisions stratégiques

in Les organisations : état des savoirs., SAUSSOIS J.-M. (ed.), Editions Sciences Humaines, pp. pp. 288-294 7 p., 2012

Journal Article

2012

GRATACAP, A., T. ISCKIA, F. FRERY

Les écosystèmes d'affaires, par-delà la métaphore

REVUE FRANCAISE DE GESTION, April 2012, vol. Vol. 38, n° 222, pp. pp. 69-75 6 p.