Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette Art Thinking

See this page in
French[FR]

 



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

Journal Article

2011

QUAGLIA, R.

Perché la sinergia conviene a tutti

SOLE 24 ORE (IL), 2011, pp. pp. 5-5 1 p.

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

COUTURIER, J., C. RAICIU, D. SOLA

Performance Dialogue: A Communication Model for Performance Improvement and Knowledge Dissemination

in Proceedings of the 31st annual international conference of the Strategic Management Society, 2011, Miami

Journal Article

2011

BUREAU, S., Y. MEILLER, W. ZHOU, S. PIRAMUTHU

Performance Drivers for RFID-Generated Item-Level Information in the Oil Industry

JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMPUTING AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, 2011, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 295-314

Journal Article

2011

DOUMPOS, M., K. KOSMIDOU

Performance Evaluation of European Banks Using Multicriteria Analysis Techniques

OPERATIONS RESEARCH, 2011, pp. 161-166

Journal Article

2011

HEYER, E., M. PLANE, J. CREEL

Petit précis de politique budgétaire par tous les temps

REVUE DE L'OFCE : OBSERVATIONS ET DIAGNOSTICS ECONOMIQUES, January 2011, vol. n° 116, pp. pp. 61-88 28 p.

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

BADOT, O., B. SOMMIER, M. POULAIN

Petite mythologie des produits "bio". Une analyse ethnomarketing dans des points de vente Biocoop

in Actes du 27ème Congrès de l'Association Française de Marketing, 2011, Bruxelles

Review of a book; an article; a research

2011

BUREAU, S.

Petite revue sur la revue de littérature à l'usage des candides

2011, LIBELLIO D'AEGIS (LE), France

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

SAULPIC, O., F. D. GEUSER

Peut-on parler de Balanced Scorercarding ? Contribution à la compréhension du processus d'adaptation des instruments de contrôle

in Actes du 32e congrès annuel de l'Association Francophone de Comptabilité, 2011, Montpellier, France

Edited Book / Textbook

2011

NEYER, J., A. WIENER

Political Theory of the European Union

Oxford University Press, 2011

Chapter

2011

ZEROUAL, T., C. BLANQUART, V. CARBONE

Politiques de transport durable et stratégies des firmes

in La responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise : nouvelle régulation du capitalisme ?., POSTEL N., CAZAL D., CHAVY F. ...et al.(eds), Presses universitaires du Septentrion, pp. pp. 271-287 17 p., 2011