Bently Spang is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, educator and writer working in mixed media sculpture, video, performance, and installation. He is also an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation in Montana, the home of the Tsistsistas/Suhtaio people. Spang graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art from Montana State University Billings and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 2007 to 2009 as a full-time Visiting Faculty Member in Video,and in 2014 he was named the American Indian Studies Eminent Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wyoming.
Spang seeks to express his experience as a contemporary Tsistsistas/Suhtaio, creating a document of this time period for future generations just as his relatives in the past did for the current generations. In so doing, he embraces the complexity of the contemporary and historical issues surrounding cultural identity and place, exploring the inevitable concerns that arise—personal, communal, environmental and cultural—when the two converge. The artist’s ongoing relationship with his reservation homeland is often a central element of his work, and he and his people continue to devise strategies to meet the challenges of today and ensure the survival of the Tsistsistas/Suhtaio people.
Spang’s artwork is in museum and private collections in the US and Europe, and he has exhibited widely in the US, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and South America. Museum collections include the Denver Art Museum, National Museum of the American Indian and the Montclair Art Museum.
Three recent exhibitions of note include: 2014-Tekcno Powwow 3, mixed media performance, and On Fire, single-channel video installation with drawings, University of Wyoming Art Museum; and 2014-Indienes des Plaines, Musee Du Quai Branly, Paris, France.
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