Ari Dinero

Project Statement

Rep Schvitz is meant to evoke the kind of devotional cinephile institutions Portland is known for. Specifically I have in mind the interior spaces of the likes of Movie Madness and the Hollywood Theatre, which combine both a love for the artifacts and aesthetics of old cinema and serve as miniature museum displays complete with plaques, didactics, certificates of authenticity, and images of the pieces on display in their onscreen contexts.

As such, the various components of this installation are eclectic in material and media. I seek to mirror those touchstones, albethem with the uncanny, as a closer view reveals the content of my work to be tackling Jewish representation, caricature, tropes, and urban myths that have proliferated in filmic history from its outset. My intention through inclusion of these juxtaposed pieces, is to take on these issues in accordance with varying delivery methods. In doing so, I aim to create a robust whole, which allows multi-tiered viewing, interaction, and understanding, across a wide viewership.

Artist Statement

This installation aims to multitudinously showcase my struggle with popular media's reductive portrayal of Jews in contrast to our more nuanced liminal position in America.

About Ari Dinero

Ari Dinero is a multimedia artist from Philadelphia, PA working mainly in acrylic painting, hand-embroidery, and digital and traditional collage. They use a unique editorial voice informed by a history spent on both coasts and abroad to imbue their work with an irreverent satirical tone that aims to speak truth to power. Their work thrives at the nexus of word and image, often featuring wordplay and visual and verbal puns. As a religious Jew and a genderqueer individual, they exemplify living in multiple civilizations simultaneously, and their multi-pronged approach to artmaking is a direct reflection of that.

Dinero began their undergraduate studies at California College of the Arts and completed their BFA in Illustration at Syracuse University where they graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2018. Their current graduate work explores the vestigial minstrel qualities of Jewish representation and racial formation in popular media with a focus on contemporary American satire.

MFA in Visual Studies