A little over a year ago, the artist Piotr Uklanski moved his studio from downtown Manhattan to the Polish enclave of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “It’s not an accident that this is where I chose to be,” says the 39-year-old Warsaw native. After all, Uklanski wrote and directed Summer Love: The First Polish Western, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2006. And in 2003, at the Frieze art fair in London, he spray painted the words Boltanski, Polanski, Uklanski on a wall, audaciously proclaiming a national creative lineage that includes him.

His paintings, photographs and sculptural installations engage both kitsch and fine-art forms—the flashing grid of Dance Floor, 1996, riffs on Minimalist and popular aesthetics—but Polish culture is never very far away. Uklanski’s recent solo debut at the Gagosian Gallery in New York was titled “Bialo-Czerwona” (“Red-White”), a reference to Poland’s bicolor flag. The exhibition, which ran through May 17, was a tour de force that included a soaring mosaic made from about 800 ceramic dishes, a series of dramatic bloodred and white paintings and a huge raised fist made of steel tubing.

With his spiky blond hair and shirts typically worn unbuttoned to midchest, Uklanski has the slightly louche air of a rock star. But when it comes to producing his work, he is an exacting perfectionist. March 14—a coffee-fueled Friday a little less than two weeks before the opening of his show—found him consumed with preparations and myriad details: scrutinizing a 13-foot-high sculpture of a crowned eagle (a variation on Poland’s national symbol); negotiating with fabricators over the details of another large-scale site-specific piece; and firming up the installation schedule with the gallery—not to mention finishing a painting with a blowtorch.

7:00 A.M. Wakes up in the East Village duplex he shares with his girlfriend and close collaborator, Alison Gingeras, the curator of François Pinault’s art collection. They usually start their day when their two-year-old daughter, Marysia, awakens. Lately, though, Uklanski says, “stress has been waking us at 4 a.m.”

7:45 A.M. Walks Sid, a Jack Russell and German pointer mix. Stops at a hole-in-the-wall coffee place on 9th Street.

8:20 A.M. Returns home with a latte for Gingeras and reads a few e-mails, including one from his Milan dealer, Massimo De Carlo, on his iPhone. Eats pancakes and has playtime with Marysia.

9:50 A.M. Gets his car, an electric-blue Toyota FJ Cruiser, from the garage; swings by the apartment to pick up Gingeras and Sid. Gives me and my tape recorder a slightly wary glance. “Are you really going to record everything?” he asks. “Just pretend I’m a journalist,” I reply. “Pretend I’m an artist!” he shouts, then laughs— a throaty, wicked, almost cartoonish cackle that is something of a trademark.

10:12 A.M. Weaving in and out of traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge, Bollywood music playing on the stereo, he answers a call from Borden Capalino, his main studio assistant. “I’ll be there in two minutes,” he drawls. Conversation then moves from the virtues of the Bedford Cheese Shop, in Williamsburg, to a dinner the previous night at the hip Brooklyn restaurant Dressler.

10:30 A.M. Stops for coffee at Café Grumpy, a few blocks from the studio. Peruses a refrigerated case of sandwiches while running his hands through his hair. He is wearing one green army jacket over another, tighter one; a pale pink dress shirt; thoroughly broken- in jeans; and handmade Italian shoes. A fuchsia Paul Smith neckerchief adds a flourish. At the counter, he picks up a bright yellow espresso cup and says, “Alison really likes these, so we ordered some of the same kind for the mosaic.”

10:40 A.M. Parks at the side entrance to his studio, a one-story commercial building. The interior is divided into art-making and administrative areas. A large rectangular space serves as Uklanski’s office, where he now takes a seat at one end of a very long table and faces two computer monitors. He puts in a call to the landlord of his apartment in Warsaw to discuss the rent (it’s going up).

11:30 A.M. Suddenly announces, “I’m ready to go.” Next destination: the Brooklyn Navy Yard, location of Clockwork Apple (CWA), a model-and image-making company that’s fabricating the eagle.

11:35 A.M. In the car with Gingeras. Construction snarls traffic. “Oh, you can write this,” he says, playfully. “It’s a juicy bit: I got this car in exchange for an artwork.” Laughs his trademark laugh. Cranks Hindi music.

12:12 P.M. Arrives at CWA and warmly greets its founder, Christo Holloway. Several craftspeople move the eagle’s wings into place on the steel, wood and foam structure, which will be coated with a white stuccolike material. Uklanski compares the piece with a source drawing: an image of an unbuilt monument conceived by the 20th-century Polish American artist and cult figure Stanislav Szukalski, whose eccentric works wed motifs of the ancient past with futuristic forms. “It’s going to be very majestic but very minimal,” he tells me. “Grand and cheap at the same time.”

12:23 P.M. Climbs a ladder to adjust the angle of the eagle’s eye. Snaps a few pictures; descends. Discusses the completion schedule with Holloway: One week from today, the sculpture will be delivered to the gallery. It’s agreed that he’ll return after the weekend to check its progress.

12:37 P.M. In the car back to Greenpoint, he reflects on how the show is coming together. “Most of the factors are familiar now. I know my people, I know what they can or cannot do. I know where the fuckups can come from. There’s still enough time. We won’t have to compromise the quality of anything.”

12:55 P.M. Gingeras drops us at the studio and drives off to an appointment.

1:10 P.M. Phones Sam Orlofsky, the point person at Gagosian, to discuss another element of the installation, a 100-foot-long red fabric curtain (reminiscent of a backdrop for a Communist Party function). The company making it wants more money: “I’ll try something else, and they can give us another estimate.” Hangs up. Says he thinks that when people see the Gagosian name they automatically charge more. Did the gallery give him a budget? “No. I told them what I wanted to make. Nobody asked me what it would cost.”

1:18 P.M. Quickly checks a Polish news Web site, then sets about revising the curtain.

2:00 P.M. Everyone wants Chinese food for lunch, but he tells me, “You have to write that we had Polish.” An assistant calls in the order. A truckload of stretched and prepped canvases is delivered. With a slight, self-mocking smile he says, “We’re not painters here.” Uklanski did, in fact, study painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts.

2:15 P.M. While waiting for his dumpling soup, picks up a thick red marker and some paper and refines the composition of a painting in progress. 

2:43 P.M. Gingeras returns, lunch arrives. Sid begs for egg rolls.

3:17 P.M. Confers with CWA about the desired color and surface texture of the eagle. “A lot of art is about control,” he says. Nods as Gingeras says she’ll order more dishware on eBay for the mosaic.

3:30 P.M. Orlofsky calls back. It’s fine to go with the original curtain design after all.

3:37 P.M. Turns to an unfinished “blood painting.” Already the surface of the nearly 20-by-10-foot canvas has been covered with a glossy red resin, which has dried to a mirrorlike shine. Changes into paint-splattered jeans and Converse low-tops. Plugs in several spotlights to illuminate the painting, which he’ll work on in sections over several days. Someone makes a coffee run to Grumpy.

4:50 P.M. Calls the gallery about the installation schedule—the paintings have to be ready in just seven days. Then he and Capalino don surgical gloves and gas masks as protection against toxic fumes. Pours white epoxy across a small area of the canvas, tilted on an ingenious support system of his own devising so that the coating oozes down. Adjusts the flow with a brush, working with and against gravity. Wipes away an errant drip. “This medium is alive!”

5:36 P.M. Ignites blowtorch, waves it over the surface to cure the resin.

5:52 P.M. Extinguishes torch, pulls off mask and takes a break before repeating the process. “I’m a little bit nervous about the show—the expectations.”

8:40 P.M. Orders more takeout and then turns back to the painting, which he works on until well after midnight.

1:30 A.M. Calls for a car (Gingeras took theirs home long ago) and leaves to get a few hours’ sleep at home before starting all over again.

"A Day in the Life" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.