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

2010

BAKER, R., A. CAMODECA, R. CANZIANI, A. MIKOL

Un ou plusieurs auditeurs pour la même entité : une comparaison entre la France, l'Italie et les Etats-Unis

in Actes du 31ème congrès de l'Association Francophone de Comptabilité, 2010, Nice, France

Paper presented in a Conference

2010

POSTIGO, S., F. TAMBORINI

Undergraduate Students as a Source of Potential Entrepreneurs: A comparative study between Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Mexico

in Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education and Training, 2010

Journal Article

2010

MIKOL, A.

Une enquête iconoclaste de la Commission européenne sur l'audit

REVUE FRANCAISE DE COMPTABILITE, December 2010, vol. n° 438, pp. p. 21 1 p.

Journal Article

2010

BICK, M., T.-F. KUMMER

Untersuchung von Nutzenpotentialen und Akzeptanzproblemen ambienter Technologien in Krankenhäusern: Erfahrungsbericht eines Mixed Methods-Projekts

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS, May 2010, vol. Special Issue, pp. pp. 1-30

Paper presented in a Conference

2010

FORTWENGEL, J.

Upgrading through Integration? The Case of the Central Eastern European Automotive Industry

in Procedings of Sixth Annual Graduate Conference in Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy, 2010, Jerusalem, Israel

Journal Article

2010

KAPLAN, A., M. HAENLEIN

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media

BUSINESS HORIZONS, 2010, vol. Vol. 53, Issue 1, pp. pp. 59-68 10 p.

Edited Book / Textbook

2010

K. BROWN, J. BURGESS, M. FESTING, S. ROYER

Value adding webs and clusters

Rainer Hampp, München, Germany, 2010

Journal Article

2010

ALFES, K., N. THOM

Wandelt sich die Personalabteilung zum strategischen Partner? Eine Bestandsaufnahme

ZEITSCHRIFT FUHRUNG + ORGANISATION (ZFO), 2010, vol. 79, Issue 4, pp. 228-233

Journal Article

2010

SCHMIDT, M.

Wertminderungen bei Finanzinstrumenten - IASB "Exposure Draft ED/2009/12 Financial Instruments: Amortised Cost and Impairment"

WIRTSCHAFTSPRUFUNG (DIE), 2010, vol. 63, Issue 6, pp. pp. 286-293 8 p.

Book

2010

PAPE, U.

Wertorientierte Unternehmensführung, 4th edition

Wissenschaft und Praxis, Sternenfels, Germany, 2010