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

Paper presented in a Conference

2010

ALKAYYALI, R., N. PRIME

Religion, acculturation and the choice of food retail outlets by Algerian origin muslim women in France: developing research propositions

in Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the European International Business Academy (EIBA), 2010, Porto

Paper presented in a Conference

2010

GARRIDO, C.

Rentabilidad de la inversión exterior española

in Procedings of 6 Jornadas de Macroeconomía en Castilla-La Mancha, 2010, Almagro, Spain

Chapter

2010

CADIN, L., A. HUGUES-LITTIERE

RESEAU NATIONAL

in Pratiques de GRH dans les pays francophones., CHEVALIER F. (ed.), Vuibert, pp. pp. 353-359 7 p., 2010

Paper presented in a Conference

2010

KASSIS HENDERSON, J.

Resistance to the Imposition of English in the workplace: the case of a French company

in EGOS, European Group for Organizational Studies: Waves of Globalization: repetition and Difference in organizing over time and space, 2010, Lisbon, Portugal

Journal Article

2010

AZHAR ARNAL, J., J. BARREAU

Responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise, comité d’entreprise européen et négociation collective transnationale

REVUE NEGOCIATIONS, 2010, vol. (14), pp. 21-35

Conference Proceedings

2010

AZHAR ARNAL, J., J. BARREAU

Restructuring, financialisation and sustainable development Policy

in Procedings of 10th EURAM Annual Conference E, European Academy of Management (EURAM), 2010, Rome, Italy

Review of a book; an article; a research

2010

SCHMID, S., T. KOTULLA

Review of IRELAND, R. D., HOSKISSON R.E., HITT M. A.: The Management of Strategy. 9th international edition, South-Western/Cengage Learning, Florence, 2010

2010, MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Chapter

2010

AUER, D., M. BICK, B. KABISCH, T.-F. KUMMER

RFID-gestützte Medikation im Krankenhaus: Ein Erfahrungsbericht

in Mobilität und Ubiquitäre Informationssysteme - Technologien, Anwendungen und Dienste zur Unterstützung von mobiler Kollaboration., Bick, M., S. Eulgem, E. Fleisch, J. F. Hampe, B. König-Ries, F. Lehner, K. Pousttchi, K. Rannenberg (Eds), Köllen, pp. pp 84-96, 2010

Published Case Study

2010

POSTIGO, S., F. TAMBORINI

Ricky Sarkany

2010, Concurso Interno de Casos

Journal Article

2010

AMIR, R., J. Y. JIN, M. TROEGE

Robust results on the sharing of firm-specific information: Incentives and welfare effects

JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS, September 2010, vol. Vol. 46, Issue 5, pp. pp. 715-724 10 p.