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 :
13050 publications

Book

2008

QUAGLIA, R., D. BOLOGNESE

The Macro economic evolution of Piedmont from 2006 to 2007: a credit and deposit perspective

Oxford Management Publishing, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2008

Journal Article

2008

BADOT, O., B. COVA

The myopia of new marketing panaceas : the case for rebuilding our discipline

JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT, February 2008, pp. pp 205-219 15p

Journal Article

2008

BESSEC, M., J. FOUQUAU

The non-linear link between electricity consumption and temperature in Europe: a threshold panel approach

ENERGY ECONOMICS, 2008, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 2705-2721

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

FENDT, J., R. KAMINSKA-LABBE

The Question of Relevance in Management Science - A Revisit of Action Research

in 'The questions we ask', Proceedings of the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2008, Anaheim

Journal Article

2008

RINALDI, G.

The size of the firm in a transitional economy. Downsizing and economies of scale. The case of Russian footwear

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, 2008, pp. 105-128

Chapter

2008

GOND, J.-P., M. JOHNSON-CRAMER, L. CABANTOUS

The social construction of rationality in organizational decision-making

in Handbook of Organizational Decision-Making., Hodgkinson G., Strarbuck B. (eds.) Eds, Oxford University Press, pp. pp. 399-417 19 p., 2008

Journal Article

2008

EVANS, A. J., P. D. ALIGICA

The Spread of the Flat Tax in Eastern Europe

EASTERN EUROPEAN ECONOMICS, May 2008, pp. pp 49-67 19p

Paper presented in a Conference

2008

COEURDEROY, R., G. MURRAY, G. LICHT, M. COWLING

The Survival of Rapidly Internationalizing Start-ups: an empirical investigation on a panel sample of New Technology-based Firms from German and UK

in Proceedings of the Knowledge for Growth, 2008, Toulouse, France

Conference Proceedings

2008

JOUSLIN DE NORAY, T.

The Theory and Empirics of Discrimination

in Procedings of XVIIth Aix Marseille Doctoral Spring Course in Economics, Groupement de Recherche en Economie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille, 2008, Aix-en-Provence, France

Edited Special Issue

2008

FRANK JACOB, F., W. ULAGA

The Transition from Product to Service Business

2008, INDUSTRIAL MARKETING MANAGEMENT