On the memorial day of the brilliant absurdist writer Daniil Kharms, a huge portrait of him appeared on the wall of house No. 11 on Mayakovsky Street in Saint Petersburg. This beautiful old building is known for the fact that Daniil Kharms lived in one of its apartments for about sixteen years, from 1925 to 1941.

Here he was both happy and unhappy, until by the late 1930s the increasing autism combined with the absence of a basic survival instinct and the presence of emotional agitation led to increased impulsivity and inadequacy of behavior. A diary entry from 1938 reads: “Approached the window naked. Opposite, in the house, apparently someone was outraged, I think it was a sailor woman. A policeman, a janitor, and someone else burst into my place. They stated that for three years I have been disturbing the residents in the house opposite. I hung curtains. What is more pleasant to the eye: an old woman in a single shirt or a young man completely naked?” In 1939, Kharms finally came not only under the scrutiny of law enforcement but also psychiatrists. He was admitted for treatment to a psychiatric hospital and after discharge received a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It is hardly possible to agree with those biographers who believe that Kharms’s mental illness was “just another artistic mystification,” a simulation aimed at obtaining a “protective certificate” that could have saved him from re-arrest. For many artists, certainly, illness was one of the few means allowing them to hide from a world not very friendly to them. In Kharms’s case, if anything can be assumed, it is only the development of an ongoing mental disorder.

It was from this very house that the writer and poet was taken away in a black van in August 1941. He did not return home; after arrest, interrogations, and psychiatric examination, he was declared schizophrenic and placed in the prison hospital at the “Kresty” prison. He died in this hospital on February 2, 1942, presumably from exhaustion.

Street artists Pasha Kas and Pavel Mokich created a ten-meter-high black-and-white graffiti on the facade of the house in Saint Petersburg especially for the 74th anniversary of Kharms’s death. The authors say they began cutting the stencil for the portrait at midnight on February 1, and by 6 a.m. they arrived at the address and painted the portrait, for which they had to hire a cherry picker. The unusual project was supervised by Rush X, who organized the parallel program of the contemporary art biennale “Manifesta 10.”

The authors of Kharms’s portrait say that they coordinated their project with the residents of the house and the management company, but did not seek permission from the authorities. At the same time, the artists do not hide their authorship and are ready to take responsibility for their actions. The grand graffiti on the house where Kharms lived is, according to the artists, a kind of manifesto by the authors; in this way, they want to draw attention to the fact that Saint Petersburg still does not have a museum dedicated to the brilliant poet.

Source: http://www.d-harms.ru/monuments/portret-daniila-harmsa-na-dome-v-kotorom-on-zhil.html