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 :
13050 publications

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

ZARLOWSKI, P.

Governing the calculable researcher? An analysis of research assessment practices in institutions for higher education in management in France

in Proceedings of the European Group For Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Journal Article

2008

FENDT, J., W. SACHS

Grounded Theory Method in Management Research : Users' Perspectives

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS, July 2008, vol. vol.11, issue 3, pp. pp 430-455 26 p

Published Case Study

2008

LAPOULE, P.

Groupe Danone: building the business of the future

2008, CCMP, Paris, France

Chapter

2008

CREEL, J., G. GILBERT, T. MADIES

Has France become a deficit-running country ?

in Fiscal policy in the EU., FEIRREIRO, J., FONTANA, G., SERRANO, F. (Eds), Palgrave Macmillan, pp. pp. 129-156 27 p., 2008

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

COEURDEROY, R., F. BRIDOUX, R. DURAND

Heterogeneous motivational drivers of knowledge generation and deployment: Implications for the design of knowledge-intensive firms

in Proceedings of the EGOS Conference, 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

SCHMID, S., K. KRETSCHMER

How Do Foreign Subsidiaries Differ in Terms of Performance Evaluation? An Empirical Study Based on Bartlett/Ghoshal’s Role Typology

in 2008 Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business, 2008, Milan, Italy

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

SCHMID, S., A. DANIEL

How Perception Gaps Concerning the Subsidiary’s Role May Lead to Conflict: A Social Psychological Approach

in 24th EGOS Colloquium, 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Journal Article

2008

LUNA, D., B. VOYER, A. SCHWOB, S. CZELLAR

How personal are consumer brand evaluations?

ADVANCES IN CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2008, vol. Vol. 35, pp. p. 997 1 p.

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

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

How to use performance management as a strategic weapon? A new framework for sustainable performance improvement

in Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the European Academy of Management (EURAM), 2008, Ljubljana

Studies and Reports commissioned by Companies and Research Agencies

2008

QUAGLIA, R., D. BOLOGNESE

I Confidi

2008