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 :
13052 publications

Journal Article

2006

FENDT, J.

Are You Promoting Change or Hindering It?

HARVARD MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION LETTER, Winter 2006, vol. vol. 3, issue 1, pp. pp 1-4 4 p

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

MERCADO, S., J. LEOPOLD

Assessing Curriculum Internationalisation

in Proceedings of the 18th Annual EAIE Conference, 2006, Basle, Switzerland

Research Monograph (Working papers)

2006

BAYLE-TOURTOULOU, A.-S., G. LAURENT, S. MACE

Assessing the frequency and causes of out-of-stock events through store scanner data

Cahiers de Recherche - Groupe HEC, 2006

Textbook

2006

MIKOL, A.

Audit financier et commissariat aux comptes

2006, Comptabilité, Lille-Hellemmes, France

Journal Article

2006

HOWARD, M., J. MIEMCZYK

Automotive supplier parks: an imperative for build-to-order?

JOURNAL OF PURCHASING AND SUPPLY MANAGEMENT, 2006, vol. 12/2, pp. 91-104

Journal Article

2006

BENCINI, F., S. MARINESI

Basilea2: Il ruolo del Rendiconto Finanziario nelle PMI

Contabilita' Finanza e Controllo, 2006

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

BUNKAWANICHA, P., Y. WIWATTANAKANTANG

Big Business Owners and Politics: Investigating the Economic Incentives of Holding Top Office

in Proceedings of the European Finance Association Annual Meeting, 2006, Zurich

Edited Book / Textbook

2006

MACE, S.

Blog Marketing

Marketing, Paris, France, 2006

Edited Book / Textbook

2006

WRIGHT, J., S. MACE

Blog marketing

Village mondial, Paris, France, 2006

Chapter

2006

HEILBRUNN, B.

Brave New Brands: Cultural Branding between Utopia and A-topia

in Brand Culture., SCHROEDER J., SALZER-MÖRLING M. (eds), Routledge, pp. pp. 103-117 15 p., 2006