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 :
13049 publications

Radio Talk

2011

ANDRIOSOPOULOS, D.

Interview on the current economic situation of the European periphery and the potential impact on the UK economy

2011, BBC Radio Humberside

Debate; Point of view; Editorial,…

2011

VOYER, B., G.

Interview to Psychologies magazine UK, On the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

2011, PSYCHOLOGIES, UK

Chapter

2011

DANIEL, J.-M., E. ALPHANDRY

Introduction

in L'Année des professions financières 2011 : Crise de la dette et financement de la nouvelle croissance., Centre des professions financières Ed., Association d'Economie Financière (AEF), pp. 7-13, 2011

Book

2011

BIACABE, J.-L., J.-M. DANIEL, G. DUCHENE

Introduction à l'économie

Synthex, Montreuil, France, 2011

Textbook

2011

BIACABE, J. -L., J.-M. DANIEL, G. DUCHÊNE, P. LENAIN

Introduction à l'économie

2011, Pearson

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

LE MANH, A.

Investigating the IASB due process: the case of comprehensive income

in Proceedings of the 7th workshop on European Financial Reporting, Accounting in Europe, 2011, Bamberg, France

Journal Article

2011

KAPLAN, A., M. HAENLEIN

Investigation of differences in diffusion between positive and negative Word-of-Mouth

ADVANCES IN CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2011, vol. Vol. 38, Issue 1

Journal Article

2011

BLASCO-ARCAS, L., J.-I. AZNAR-BARANDA, B. HERNANDEZ-ORTEGA, J. RUIZ-MAS

IPTV as a services distribution channel: The importance of interactivity and personalization in the purchasing of news‐on‐demand packages

INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT & DATA SYSTEMS, 2011, vol. 111(9), pp. 1381 - 1398

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

MERCADO, S.

Is Collaboration The Way Forward ?

in Proceedings of the External Relations Group Annual Conference of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), 2011, Alicante, Spain

Journal Article

2011

HILTON, D., E. MICHEL-KERJAN, H. KUNREUTHER, L. CABANTOUS

Is imprecise knowledge better than conflicting expertise ? Evidence from insurers' decisions in the United States

JOURNAL OF RISK AND UNCERTAINTY, June 2011, vol. Vol. 42, Issue 3, pp. pp. 211-232 22 p.