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

Paper presented in a Conference

2009

MEILLER, Y., S. BUREAU

Modeling and Simulation of Business Impact of RFID Innovation : How to address the right system? Mapping of difficulties from a Healthcare Logistic Project

in Proceedings of the American Conference of Information Systems, San francisco, 2009, San Francisco, United States

Paper presented in a Conference

2009

ZHOU, W., G. KAPOOR, S. PIRAMUTHU

Modified Slotted ALOHA Protocol for RFID Tag Collisions

in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, 2009, London

Chapter

2009

DÍAZ, C., O. BAJO

Monetary and Fiscal Policies in the Transition to EMU: an Overview of the Spanish Experience

in Global Challenges and Policies of the European Union −Consequences for the “New Member States"., Piotrowska. M, Kurowski. L Eds, Publishing House of the Wrocław University of Economics, pp. 22-29, 2009

Book

2009

BOUVET, T., O. GRIVILLERS, P. RAIMBOURG

Motivation financière des dirigeants

FINANCE, Paris, France, 2009

Paper presented in a Conference

2009

DAMBRIN, C., K. ROBSON

Multiple measures, inscription instability and action at a distance: performance measurement practices in the pharmaceutical industry

in Proceedings of the 4th Alternative Perspectives in Accounting Research Conference, 2009, Quebec, Canada

Paper presented in a Conference

2009

MURATBEKOVA-TOURON, M.

Mutual Perceptions of Russian and French Managers

in Proceedings of the European International Business Academy (EIBA), 2009, Valencia, Spain

Habilitation Dissertation

2009

KHAROUBI, C.

Naitre dans la non-normalité, grandir dans la dépendance et s'épanouir dans le cadre légal

Université Lille 2, 2009

Paper presented in a Conference

2009

BOUDES, T.

Narrativity and narrativehood as primary constituents of sensemaking in storytelling

in Proceedings of the 2009 European Academy of Management (EURAM), University of Liverpool, 2009, Liverpool

Journal Article

2009

HOSSFELD, C.

NATIXIS

REVUE FRANCAISE DE COMPTABILITE, May 2009, vol. n° 421, pp. p.14 1 p.

Journal Article

2009

MÁRQUEZ, P., E. REFICCO, G. BERGER

Negocios inclusivos en Latinoamérica

Harvard Business Review ed. América Latina, 2009, vol. Mayo, no. Edición América Latina, pp. 28-38