Three major art events in three time zones, 16 buses of students connecting the city of Shanghai and a consultancy job for ArtHub may give Defne Ayas an art attack

Home

4:30am Wake up. I’m jet-lagged, it’s been more than five days now. Jet-lagged mice die younger, researchers say. I hope this is not true. Check email, manage to fall back asleep around 5:30am.

8:30 Christoph gives me a good morning kiss, then quietly sneaks out of the house.

9:30 Drink some home-brewed coffee (the last bits from artist Michael Lin’s Illy collection), check email, respond depending on the urgency of requests. While I’m at my laptop, Ayi arrives. She cannot iron or cook but is great at massag-ee. She doesn’t think I am working when I am at home, so keeps chatting to me about just about anything. It’s good for my broken Mandarin, so I grin and bear it.

10:00 Download emails and pack up. On the way out, check on the golden headed turtles in the fall garden. Bump into the electrician who just showed up in the garden without any notice. Hop on my yellow bike with laptop, and off I go.

Café

10:30 Meeting at a nearby café with a museum curator who tells me that he is on a trip to Tokyo, Yokohama, Singapore, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Guangju, all in two weeks. He wants to meet young Shanghainese artists (where to start? there are so few). He wants to know how to set up a residency here (there are basically none functioning) and how he could create an exchange exhibition between China and his home base (Chinese museums won’t put in a penny, okay?). He adds his museum could also bring their collection here. (Great, but just please don’t dump your collection like the Guggenheim did.)

Lunch

12:30pm Time for lunch with an ArtHub participant. This time it’s with art historian Zhao Chuan who is writing a book in English on the birth of avant-garde in Shanghai. He is excited about his new collaborative performance project at the outset of the 80th anniversary of “A Madman’s Diaries” which explores Lu Xun’s influence on East Asia.

Editing

1:30 Finalize texts for the next PERFORMA book and Festival D’Automne guidebook, revise grant applications and artist contracts for next year. Add updates to the ArtHub website (www.arthub.org.cn) and check on Shanghai Art Chase blog (shanghaichase.blogspot.com) for progress with the reviews by my students at NYU in Shanghai.

4:00 Fine tune Shanghai eArts festival logistics and schedules with co-organizer Davide Quadrio. Our section Final Cut (October 18-22) consists of a performance stage in Xuhui Park, with installations nearby and video screenings on LED screens. We are working to get all the sponsorships, equipment, approvals, flights/ hotels and promo materials arranged on time. Will the artists pass the red tape? Will their DVDs make it through the postal service and be converted on time? Will the allotted screening time be as long as we asked for? How about this one: will the artists get their visas? We still don’t have all the answers.

Crisis

5:30 Crisis email about the Detour bus + map project, which ArtHub organized along with the IFA Gallery, Lime Design, major galleries, museums and independent exhibition spaces during the Biennale. A number of generously spirited meetings resulted in this project for the Shanghai art scene: 16 buses and hundreds of maps. There are still pending payments from some galleries. Smoke is in the air.

6:30 Wrap up the emails, then bike to the grocery store to replenish the fridge. Stock up on some spirits for unexpected guests.

7:30 Christoph arrives and we decide to stay in and eat some delicacies over a film.

New York Time

10:00 PERFORMA New York office is now on (thanks to the 12-hour time difference). A top museum emails saying that they are interested in supporting the commissioned project that engages with their collection but only “if it enhances the audience’s understanding of the work.” Can I please help them justify the project as an educational tool that will expand the understanding of historical works through a specific contemporary lens? How does this artist envision the live performance in relation to the visitors? While I draft the response letter, I realize a grant deadline is upon me. Send off an outline to New York, while scheming about how appropriate it is to do a parallel version in Shanghai from February onwards.

11:30 Check on Artforum, Artnews, Bloomberg Muse. No need to use proxy today, but RSS feeder is not working again. Read about Istanbul politics, excited about the presidential visit to Armenia. Check the New York Times, cranky financial markets and their impact on cultural institutions. Drift off to Sarah Silverman, John Stewart, Facebook ...

Crash

1:30am About to crash. Orhan Pamuk’s new book, Museum of Innocence, is sitting next to me on the beautiful bed box crafted for us by Mü Design’s Jutta. Laptop on. The New York office asks: up for a SKYPE call?

What We Think...

Don’t you just love it when your U.S. home office comes online just around the time you should be knocking off work? It’s a common peril for people like Defne who have their feet firmly planted in two continents. Check out Defne and Davide’s Final Cut in Xuhui at the Shanghai eArts Festival 2008 on Oct. 18-22 (www.shearts.org) and tell them what you think at www.cityweekend.com.cn/dayinthelifeSH.