Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette Art Thinking
See this page in
[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.
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
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
- Scientific publications
- Doctoral theses and final dissertations
- Improbable Siesta: seminar bringing together researchers, artists, and experts in creation
- Spreading the Improbable method at ESCP and beyond
- Designing initial training in Art Thinking
- Training Art Thinking instructors
- 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...

Article
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.
Paper presented in a Conference
2014
Executive Pay Narratives in Germany and Russia: Cases of Path Dependence?
in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Path Dependence, 2014, Berlin, Germany
Paper presented in a Conference
2014
Experiencing Bluewater: a fantasy world during hard economic times
in Proceedings of the Consumer Culture Theory Conference, 2014, Helsinki, Finland
Journal Article
2014
Explaining factors affecting technological change adoption: A survival analysis of an information system implementation
MANAGEMENT DECISION, 2014, vol. Vol.52, no. Issue 6, pp. pp.1082-1100 (19 p.)
Journal Article
2014
Explaining money demand in China during the transition from a centrally planned to a market-based monetary system
POST-COMMUNIST ECONOMIES, 2014, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 376-400
Paper presented in a Conference
2014
Explaining the effects of corporate community involvement on employee job satisfaction and turnover intent
in Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Congress of Applied Psychology, 2014, Paris, France
Journal Article
2014
Explaining variation in conspicuous luxury consumption: An individual differences perspective
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH, 2014, vol. Vol. 67, Issue 10, pp. pp. 2147-2154 7 p.
Paper presented in a Conference
2014
Exploratory analysis of young-adult consumer decision-making styles in the Western Balkans : same same but different?
in EBR Conference 2014, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia
PhD Dissertation
2014
Exploring Creativity in Temporary Virtual Teams: The Case of Engineering Design
2014, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
Chapter
2014
Exploring Product-Service Supply Dynamics in the Defence Industry
in Performance Based Logistics Innovatives Beschaffungsmanagement für die Streitkräfte., Michael Eßig, Andreas Glas Eds, Springer Gabler, pp. 185-215, 2014
Conference Proceedings
2014
Exploring Transitions and Work-Life Balance in the Digital Era
in ‘Digital Work, Digital Life’, European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), 2014, Tel Aviv, Israel