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

Chapter

2011

COUTURIER, J., D. SOLA, C. HALLIBURTON

European Market Entry Strategies

in Herausforderungen der internationalen marktorientierten Unternehmensführung (Challenges in International Marketing)., MANN A. (Hrsg.) Ed., Gabler, pp. pp. 95-113 19 p., 2011

Journal Article

2011

HAENLEIN, M., A. KAPLAN

Evaluating the consequences of abandoning unprofitable customers: A comparison of direct and indirect abandonment strategies

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS, 2011, vol. Vol. 81, Issue 2, pp. pp. 77-94 15 p.

Journal Article

2011

BERTOLDI, B.

Evaluation framework o f the trans-generational succession process in family business

ELETRONICAL JOURNAL OF FAMILY BUSINESS STUDIES, 2011

Journal Article

2011

THOMAS, P.

Evolution de l'analyse financière

RB - REVUE BANQUE, September 2011, vol. n°739, pp. pp. 72-73 2 p.

Journal Article

2011

MACÍAS, M., F. MUIÑO

Examining Dual Accounting Systems in Europe

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING (THE), 2011, vol. 46, pp. 51-78

Published Case Study

2011

M. FESTING, I. SAHAKIANTS

Expatriate-Vergütung bei Robert Bosch GmbH

2011, Gabler / Internationales Personalmanagement

Journal Article

2011

MINBAEVA, D., M. MURATBEKOVA-TOURON

Experience of Canadian and Chinese acquisitions in Kazakhstan

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, September 2011, vol. Vol. 22, Issue 14, pp. pp. 2946-2964 19 p.

Journal Article

2011

BAUDOIN, E.

Exploring the diversity of learning outcomes in e-learning courses: four case-studies in a French MNC

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, 2011

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

CAÑIBANO, A.

Exploring the Negative Outcomes of Workplace Innovations.

in Proceedings of the 25th British Academy of Management. HRM conference, 2011, Royal Holloway London, United Kingdom

Conference Proceedings

2011

STEYER, V., H. LAROCHE

Exploring the social aspect of sensemaking: the other’s place in the sensemaking process of an individual

in Third international symposium on Process Organization Studies, International Symposium on Process Organization Studies, 2011, Corfu, Greece