M12 is a group of award-winning artists, researchers, and writers collectively based in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West. Primarily known for art projects that explore public space, rural cultures and landscapes, M12 holds a unique position as both a non-profit arts organization and an artistic practice. Projects of M12 have appeared in The Washington Post, THE magazine (Santa Fe, NM), 5280 (Denver, CO), The Rural: Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London, (2019, MIT Press), Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West (2014, The New Press, Lucy R. Lippard) and What is a Western? (2019, Oklahoma University Press, Josh Garrett-Davis) along with others.
M12 creates artworks, research projects, and education initiatives centered around context and place. The studio blends multiple fields, allowing research, fieldwork, design and site-specific sculpture to merge. Speaking to the complexities of rural places, M12 has been recipients of numerous awards including those from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Colorado Creative Industries; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Gates Family Foundation; The Indianapolis Community Foundation; The Minneapolis Foundation, and others.
Recent exhibitions and commissioned works by M12 have appeared at: High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, Fargo, ND; The 21st International Art Biennial of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia; The 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy; The Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar, Sweden; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX; The Santa Fe Art Institute, NM; The Des Moines Public Art Foundation, Des Moines, IA; Corcoran Gallery, School of Art in Washington DC; The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM; IASKA Australian Biennial, Perth, Australia; Biennial of the Americas, Denver, CO; The Kohler Arts Center, WI; The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD; and The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Culver City, CA / Wendover, NV.
M12 is currently: Richard Saxton (founder / creative director), Margo Handwerker (curator / editor), Matthew Fluharty (curator / editor), Trent Segura (design / online ops), Marc McCay (merch / archives), George Perez (research / project support), Mary Welcome (research / project support), and Christopher Sauter (research / project support)
