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| Bently Spang | |
|---|---|
| Name | Bently Spang |
| Birth date | 1960 |
| Birth place | Poplar, Montana, United States |
| Nationality | Assiniboine Sioux (Nakoda) |
| Occupation | Artist, writer, educator, curator |
Bently Spang is an Assiniboine Sioux (Nakoda) multidisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and educator known for work in contemporary art, installation, sculpture, performance, and writing. He has exhibited across North America and internationally, engaging with themes of identity, colonial history, language, and cultural resilience. Spang's practice connects Indigenous knowledge with contemporary artistic discourse and museum studies.
Born in Poplar, Montana, Spang is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes and grew up in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, where influences included tribal elders and community leaders. He earned formal training at institutions such as the Institute of American Indian Arts and pursued studies that connected Indigenous artistic traditions with contemporary art practices. During his formative years he encountered mentors and peers associated with Native American art movements and tribal cultural programs.
Spang's career spans roles as an exhibiting artist, curator, writer, and cultural advocate. He has worked in collaboration with museums, galleries, and Indigenous cultural centers, engaging with institutions such as the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Institution, and regional galleries. His multidisciplinary practice includes ceramics, textiles, beadwork, metalwork, installation, and performance, and he has participated in biennials, retrospectives, and jury panels. Spang has intersected with curators, directors, and artists from institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Spang's notable projects include installations and performances that have appeared at venues such as the Heard Museum, the Walker Art Center, the Denver Art Museum, and the Banff Centre. He has shown work in international exhibitions alongside artists represented in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, Tate Modern, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Centre Pompidou. Major exhibitions and commissions have engaged with themes resonant in showcases like the Venice Biennale, the Documenta framework, and contemporary Indigenous surveys organized by the National Gallery of Art and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Spang's work interrogates colonial histories, sovereignty, language revitalization, and contemporary Indigenous identities while employing humor, archival research, and performative tactics. His style incorporates traditional material culture alongside industrial materials and found objects, dialoguing with practices represented in the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center. He often references treaties, landmark legal decisions, and historical events in North American Indigenous history, paralleling discourses found in scholarship from universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of British Columbia.
Spang has received awards, fellowships, and residencies from arts organizations and foundations, and his work has been supported by entities similar to the Canada Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and regional arts councils. He has been recognized in contexts alongside recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, Governor General's Awards, and cultural honors conferred by tribal nations and provincial arts bodies. Institutional collections and catalogues have documented his contributions to contemporary Indigenous art.
Spang has engaged in teaching, guest lectures, and artist residencies at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, collaborating with departments and programs at institutions such as the Institute of American Indian Arts, the University of Montana, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has participated in public programming for museums including the National Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Banff Centre, contributing to symposiums, panels, and workshops addressing Indigenous art, curation, and repatriation.
Spang maintains strong ties to the Fort Peck community and to Assiniboine and Sioux cultural practices, working with elders, language keepers, and cultural programs. His familial connections and tribal citizenship inform his artistic practice, community advocacy, and involvement with tribal institutions and events. He continues to contribute to dialogues on Indigenous cultural sovereignty, language reclamation, and representation within national and international cultural arenas.
Category:Native American artists Category:Assiniboine people Category:Sioux people Category:Living people