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

Conference Proceedings

2011

BERTHOD, O.

The nature in chains: Centralization of power in the global food industry

in Dezentrale Organisation und Netzwerke, Universität Siegen, 2011

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

HAENLEIN, M., A. M. KAPLAN

The Parting of the Ways: Emotional and Behavioral Reactions in Response to Alternative Customer Divestment Strategies

in Proceedings of the American Marketing Association (AMA), 2011, San Francisco, United States

Guest Speaker in a Research Seminar

2011

VOYER, B., G.

The Perfect Performance, a social-psychological perspective

Social Psychology Society at the London School of Economics. 2011

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

GIACHINO, C., F. PUCCIARELLI, B. BERTOLDI

The product creation process in the family run businesses: an inside vision

in Intelligence and Courage - Family firms' vision in the era of economic turmoil. Theory-practice-policy, Proceedings of the 11th IFERA Family Business Research Conference, 2011, Palermo

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

VOYER, B.

The psychological consequences of power on self-perception: implications for leadership research

in International Conference, Proceedings of the International Society for Political Psychology (ISPP), 2011, Istanbul, Turkey

Book

2011

HARZING, A. -W.

The Publish or Perish Book

Tarma Software Research, Melbourne, 2011

Book

2011

HARZING, A. -W.

The Publish or Perish Book

Tarma Software Research, Melbourne, 2011

Book

2011

HARZING, A. -W.

The Publish or Perish Book

Tarma Software Research, Melbourne, 2011

Book

2011

HARZING, A. -W.

The Publish or Perish Book

Tarma Software Research, Melbourne, 2011

Journal Article

2011

WINANT, P., N. COEURDACIER, H. REY

The Risky Steady-State

AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW (THE), 2011