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March 2004

Bently Spang (Northern Cheyenne) is a multi-disciplinary artist and videomaker who works in site-specific video installation, photography, live performance, and short films. Spang's work deals with issues surrounding his Northern Cheyenne identity. His art is in private and museum exhibits and collections in the U.S. and Europe. Spang was awarded a Paul Allen Foundation Grant in 2004 for a residency in conjunction with the Techno Powwow Project. In 2003 he received a Woodrow Wilson Foundation: Imagining America grant, and an Outstanding Alumni Award from Montana State University-Billings. Spang has also received artist fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

"I am interested in sampling from as many mediums and modes of expression as are necessary to express my experience as a living Cheyenne man. I sit squarely in the center of a continuum of making that is countless generations old. Moving forward with my work, I strive to illuminate the contradictions, the injustices and to celebrate the intricacies of a living culture."

Screened by NMAI

Selected Museum Exhibitions

  • Lewis and Clark Territory: Contemporary Artists Revisit Place, Race, and Memory (Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, 2004)
  • Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (International Center of Photography, New York, 2003)
  • Staging the Indian: The Politics of Representation (Tang Museum, Skidmore College, 2002)

Image credit: Bently Spang - courtesy of Monica Wehri; Bently Spang - courtesy of the filmmaker

Screened by NMAI

Selected Museum Exhibitions

Participant, 2003 Native American Film and Video Festival


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