Bently Spang
Individual
Roles
Artist, Curator, WriterBiography
Bently Spang (born 1960) is a Northern Cheyenne multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. His work has been exhibited widely in North America, South America, and Europe. The University of Wyoming's American Indian Study Program named Spang its "Eminent Artist in Residence" for the spring semester of 2014. He was awarded the Montana Arts Council Artist's Innovation Award in 2017 and has recently received the 2018 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Culture Foundation. Bently Spang’s work is a direct reclamation of his cultural story while taking back ownership of the photograph and correcting inaccurate and often ridiculous depictions of his people. He is an educator as well, having created and overseen an arts initiative to “‘grow’ a new generation of Native voices that can help define our experience from within our community.” Museum collections include the Denver Art Museum, National Museum of the American Indian and the Montclair Art Museum.Sculpture in the Wild, 2022