Andrei Monastyrski: Kashira Highway

The first English translation of the novel Kashira Highway, a fine example of Russian "psychodelic realism." Andrei Monastyrski’s semi-autobiographical novel Kashira Highway is set in the early 1980s and tells the story of an artist’s nervous breakdown, juxtaposing the gray world of Brezhnev era Moscow and the lurid landscape of the protagonist’s imagination. Translated by Andrew Bromfield and with new illustrations by Pavel Pepperstein. Andrei Monastyrski (b. 1949, Petsamo, Russia) lives and works in Moscow. He is the leader of the Moscow Conceptual School. One of the founders of the group Collective Actions (1976– ), he became its chief ideologist and the author of most of its actions. Together with Vadim Zakharov and Yuri Leiderman, he participated in the groups Kapiton (2008–2010) and Corbusier (2009–2010). Solo exhibitions include: Empty Zones: Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions, Russian Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Out of Town: Andrei Monastyrski & Collective Actions, e-flux, New York (2011); Andrei Monastyrski, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2010); and Earthworks, Stella Art Gallery, Moscow (2005). Group exhibitions include: Russian Performance: A Cartography of its History, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2014); 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); and 50th Venice Biennale (2003). He has been awarded the Andrei Bely Prize (Russia, 2003) and the Innovation Prize (Russia, 2009). A collection of Monastyrski’s poetry and other writing in English translation, Elementary Poetry, was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2019.