Lise Haller Baggesen

Lise Haller Baggesen (1969 DK/US) (she/they) is a Danish-born-and-raised, Amsterdam-trained, Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist. Her hybrid practice includes painting, writing, performance, installation, sartorial, text-, and textile-based work. She is the author of Mothernism, and exhibits internationally, most recently with the multi-media show A Space Where Your Voices Can Live (S/DK) and the solo exhibitions APOCALYPSTICK and  ChrOmAmOur (F).

Lise Haller Baggesen left her native Denmark in 1992 to study painting at the AKI, and the Rijksakademie (96/96) in Amsterdam. She received the Prince Bernhard’s Prize (2000) and the Royal Award for Modern Painting (2003) as well as numerous grants from the Mondriaan Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation (1998–2015). She relocated with her family to Chicago in 2008 and completed her MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with a SAIC VCS Fellowship Award (2013). She is a 2015 nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Emerging Artist Grant, and a 2017 resident at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada. She exhibits internationally, including the Poetry Foundation; the Chicago Cultural Center; the Art Institute of Chicago; Threewalls; 6018 North; Gallery 400, UIC; DPAM and MCA, all Chicago (IL); EFA and A.I.R. Gallery (NY); The Contemporary Austin (TX); Southern Exposure (CA); The Suburban, (WI);  Overgaden (DK); Museet for Samtidskunst (DK); Roskilde Festival (DK); Malmö Konstmuseum (SE); Württembergischem Kunstverein (D); MoMu Antwerpen (B); Centraalmuseum Utrecht (NL); Haags Gemeentemuseum (NL); W139 (NL); Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers (F): Villa Arson, Nice (F) Le Bicolore/Maison Danemark, Paris (F) and Théatre de la Ville de Paris (F). 

The Danish Arts Foundation, DK, 2025; The Danish Arts Foundation, DK; Dansk Tennisfond, DK; Barbro Osher, SE, 2023; Illinois Arts Council, IL, 2022; The Danish Art Foundation, DK, 2022; The Danish Arts Foundation, DK, 2017; The Danish Arts Foundation, DK, 2016; The Joan Mitchell Foundation (Nomination), New York, NY, 2015; SAIC VCS Fellowship Award, Chicago, IL, 2013; Curatorial Fellowship SAIC MFA show, Chicago, IL, 2012; Propeller Fund Award, Chicago, IL, 2010; Royal Award for Modern Painting, Amsterdam, NL, 2003; Prince Bernhard's Prize, Amsterdam, NL, 2000

APOCALYPSTICK!, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR, 2024; Poor & Needy, Poor Farm Press/Krabbesholm Milwaukee, WI/Skive, Denmark, 2017; Mothernism, Green Lantern Press/Poor Farm Press, Chicago, IL, 2014

Solo Exhibitions/Performances (recent selection): ChrOmAmOur, Le Bicolore/Maison Danemark, Paris, FR, 2025; Lille Solstråle sad og så pa Månen Roskilde Festival, DK, 2025; APOCALYPSTICK, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR, 2023; A Space Where Your Voices Can Live, Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, DK & Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, SE, 2023; The Painted Book of the City of Ladies Wear, RUSCHWOMAN, Chicago, IL, 2022; THE MUSEUMS OF FUTURE PAST TIMES PRESENT, Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2021; HATORADE RETROGRADE: The Musical, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA, 2019; Mothernizing, ANA Astrid Noach’s Atelier, Copenhagen, DK, 2017; A Lipstick Supremacist Mood Board, NFPL/The Open Milwaukee, WI, 2017; HATORADE RETROGRADE, Threewalls Chicago, IL, 2016; Mothernism, The Contemporary Austin, Austin TX, 2016

Group Exhibitions: Good Mom/Bad Mom, Centraalmuseum, Utrecht, NL, 2025; Kaååråålines Vers, Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, DK, 2025; Museum Without Borders, Haus Lange Haus Esters, Krefeld, DE, 2024; Super High End Underground, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, DK, 2024; The Red Wedding, RUSCHMAN, Chicago, IL, 2021; In-Flux: Chicago Artists and Immigration, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, 2020; Don’t You Stop, We Won’t Stop, The Franklin, Chicago, IL, 2020; Chronique d’une collection #1: Embarquez-Vous!, FRAC Grand Large – Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque, FR, 2020; New Age, New Age, DPAM DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL, 2019; Tainted Love (Le Club Mix), Villa Arson, Nice, FR, 2019; Living Architecture, 6018 North, Chicago, IL, 2018; I Am the Horse, Goldfinch, Chicago, IL, 2018; Splitsville Smells Like Irises, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York, NY, 2018; Work for the People or Forget about Fred Hampton, CoProsperity, Chicago, IL, 2018; Tainted Love, Le Confort Moderne, Potiers, FR, 2017; TRINITY, The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI, 2017; The Letdown Reflex, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Toronto, CA, 2017; Poor & Needy: The Great Poor Farm Experiment VIII, The Poor Farm, Manawa, WI, 2016; Do You Hear What I Hear?, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY, 2016; The Letdown Reflex, EFA Project Space, New York, NY, 2016; Institutional Garbage, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, 2016; Pegasus and Mermaid, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2016; Yelling at the Sky, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2016; EAM Biennial, Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL, 2015; Pleasure Zone, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, FR, 2015; The Mothernists, Upominki, Rotterdam, NL, 2015

In “Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism” philosopher Isabelle Stengers concludes that in times like these, you must meet despair with joy because otherwise you are done for. I have made this the credo for my entire cultural production.

Interpersonal relationships, intergenerational and intersectional eco- and cyber- feminism, reproductive justice, therapeutic aesthetics, color field painting, sci-fi tie-dye, hippie modernism, bio-punk, grunge, glam, and disco, are some of the vernaculars that inform my body of work. Since graduating in 2013 from SAIC's department of Visual and Critical Studies, this organic body has manifested itself in a hybrid and polycephalous practice, including writing, audio-visual installations, textile-, and sartorial works.

Recycling, thrifting, and hand-me-down materials are aesthetic, eco-conscious, as well as conceptual choices; to imagine a sustainable and meaningful future, we cannot afford to ignore our collective baggage and the rich material of our past.

Mother is a noun and a verb; I regard my practice as a sourdough, a gestation of material, out of which individual works, texts, and shows are wrought, while the mother remains, active.