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

Textbook

2011

MENDOZA, C., M.-H. DELMOND, C. BONNIER

Tableaux de bord

2011, Les essentiels RF, Paris, France

Studies and Reports commissioned by Companies and Research Agencies

2011

SCHÄFER, L., J. MASSMANN, P. ENGLISCH, M. FESTING

Talent Management im Mittelstand - mit innovativen Strategien gegen den Fachkräftemangel

2011

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

RASKOVIC, M.

Testing the cultural universality of young adult consumer purchase decision-­making styles : empirical results from Turkey, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Egypt.

in International journal of management cases, 2011, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Journal Article

2011

HAENLEIN, M., A. KAPLAN

The abandonment of unprofitable customer relationships: An analysis of emotional reactions

ADVANCES IN CONSUMER RESEARCH, 2011, vol. Vol .38, Issue 1

Chapter

2011

SCHMID, S., T. DAUTH, T. KOTULLA

The Acquisition of Reebok by Adidas

in Fallstudien zum Internationalen Management: Grundlagen - Praxiserfahrungen - Perspektiven., Zentes, J., Swoboda, B. and Morschett, D. (Eds.) Eds, Gabler, pp. pp. 713-731, 2011

Textbook

2011

GIRAUD, F., O. SAULPIC, M.-H. DELMOND, C. BONNIER, F. D. GEUSER, L. LAULUSA, C. MENDOZA, G. NAULLEAU, R. ZRIHEN

The art of management control

2011, Business, Paris, France

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

MERCADO, S., L. GIBSON, K. PON

The Challenge of Developing a Common Language for Transnational Education

in Proceedings of the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC), 2011, Adelaïde, Australia

Paper presented in a Conference

2011

HOSSFELD, C.

The comparability of IFRS income statements - An empirical analysis

in Proceedings of the 34th European Accounting Association Annual meeting, 2011, Rome

Guest Speaker in a Conference

2011

SCHMID, S.

The Coordination Challenge in MNCs: Implications for IB Research and Practice

2011, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

Conference Proceedings

2011

CHAMAKIOTIS, P., E. A. DEKONINCK, N. PANTELI

The Creativity of Virtual Design Teams: An Exploratory Case Study

in IS: Crossroads of Technology, People, Organizations and Markets, Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS), 2011, Limassol, Cyprus