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

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

CALABRETTA, G., B. DURISIN

Firm Innovativeness: An Empirical Study of Strategic and Operational Factors driving New Product Development Decisions

in « Knowledge, Action, and the Public Concern », Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting, 2006, Atlanta, United States

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

CALABRETTA, G., B. DURISIN

Firms Innovativeness: An Empirical Study An Empirical Study of Economic, Strategic and Operational Factors Driving New Product Development Decisions

in « Energizing European Management », Proceedings of the European Academy of Management Conference (EURAM), 2006, Oslo, Norway

Chapter

2006

LAROCHE, H.

From Decision to Action in Organizations: Decision-making as a Social Representation

in Decision making for business: A reader., SALAMAN G. (ed.), Sage, pp. pp. 254-272 19 p., 2006

Conference Proceedings

2006

FEARON, M.

From Festive Revolt to Tragic Revolution in Ernie O’Malley’s On Another Man’s Wound

in Procedings of IRELAND THE FESTIVE AND THE TRAGIC, French Society of Irish Studies, 2006, France

Journal Article

2006

POSTIGO, S., F. TAMBORINI, G. BEARZI, G. BERGER

Fundacion Pro Vivienda Social : The Entrepreneurs's Network as Source of resources

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, 2006

Book

2006

RUTTIENS, A., D. MARTEAU

Futures, swaps, options

Guide pratique, Liège, Belgium, 2006

Paper presented in a Conference

2006

HAUG, H., E. COMBE

Generic Competition and Demand Behaviour in Post-Patent Markets for Prescription Drugs : the Case of France

in Proceedings of the 33rd Conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE), 2006, Amsterdam

Edited Book / Textbook

2006

PEELEN, E., F. JALLAT, E. STEVENS, P. VOLLE

Gestion de la relation client

Pearson Education, London, France, 2006

Chapter

2006

MARTEAU, D.

Gestion du risque de crédit

in Ingénierie financière, fiscale et juridique 2006-2007., RAIMBOURG P., BOIZARD M. (eds), Dalloz, pp. pp. 292-307 15 p., 2006

Journal Article

2006

KUPP, M., U. REITZ, U. HEIMES

Gildemeister Lathes Ltd.

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL MARKETING, 2006, vol. Vol.21, Issue 2, pp. pp.118-123 6p.