No Solid Ground - Patricia Diart

An accomplished artist and writer, Diart was born in France, grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and lives in San Francisco, California. No Solid Ground by Patricia Diart is a journey through the artistic endeavors of the daring performance artist throughout her career and is published as an award for the artist winning the 2023 Kite Prize for Contemporary Art. The monograph guides us through a series of narratives and public interactions that explore physical endurance and cultural turning points. Outraged by the murder of George Floyd and feeling kinship with the Black Lives Matter and Me-Too movements, Diart was compelled to face her own treacherous experience with violence and racism. Sharing her personal story of police brutality, Diart provokes and questions the myriad institutions of power that turn a blind eye to the callous methods of police enforcement. Through daring performance and examinations of the absurd, Patricia Diart’s oeuvre elicits joy, humor, and heartbreak. Her artistic practice utilizes a variety of approaches including photography, video, sculpture, performance, writing, and animation. As an urban flaneur, documentarian, and performance artist, Diart is driven by the desire to connect with the social fabric of our world while embracing the absurdity of human existence. Her work is an ongoing vacillation between destruction and repair, love and loss, amusement and outrage. We are invited to connect with humanity vicariously through her profound, fumbling, and futile attempts at intimacy. Patricia Diart has presented performances, installations, and conceptual works nationally and internationally since 2001. She has exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area at venues including The Lab, New Langton Arts, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. She received her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and did her undergraduate work at Moore College of Art and Design. The San Francisco Chronicle and The Star Tribune, Minneapolis published articles about her current artwork, The Cape, in 2021 and 2022. Surreptitiously, she has performed The Cape at The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Seattle Asian Art Museum, and SFMOMA among other established museums. Internationally, Diart has performed in Havana, Cuba, and exhibited in Berlin and Saarbrücken, Germany as well as in Slovenia. She has also received awards from the Goethe Institute and the San Francisco Arts Commission. In 2021, her writing was selected by Kim Shuck, Poet Laureate, for