Bently Spang is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, educator and writer working in mixed media sculpture, video, performance and installation, and he is an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, home of the Tsistsistas/Suhtaio people in Montana. Years of studying the artwork of his people in museum collections and in his community have led the artist to adopt Tsistsistas/Suhtaio artistic convention, very deliberately expressing himself in a wide variety of mediums and modes of expression just as did his relatives in the past.
His work confronts contemporary and historical issues of cultural identity and place, exploring the inevitable concerns that arise— personal, communal, environmental and cultural—when the two converge. His relationship with his reservation homeland is often a central element of his work as he and his people continue to meet challenges to their hard-fought homeland and their cultural survival. In his current work, he struggles with how to express the effects of the 2012 wildfires that destroyed his family's ranch and devastated parts of his homeland.
From 2007 to 2009, Spang was a full-time, Visiting Faculty Member in Video at the SMFA. He developed a unique curriculum while at SMFA using a live video feed to bring together his students with Native elders, artists and cultural workers from his reservation and his studio in Montana. The ensuing dialogue was a rare unmediated interaction between Native and non-Native peoples, with both situated in the comfort of their respective homelands.
Education: Double major, BS, Montana State University-Billings ('91); MFA University of Wisconsin-Madison ('96). Work presented at Brooklyn Art Museum, Brooklyn, NY; International Center of Photography, NY; Denver Art Museum, Denver; La Fabbrica Del Vapore, Milan; Center Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana: Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; ; Museum of Modern Art/MASP, Rie de Janiero; National Museum of the American Indian, NY; Wave Hill, Bronx; Museum of Art and Design, NY; Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma. Grants: Creative Capital Foundation, Paul Allen Foundation, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and recipient of Distinguished Alumni Award, Montana State University-Billings.
