The early experimental work of one of the founders of Russian conceptualismRussian poet author artist and art theorist Andrei Monastyrski born 1949 is along with Ilya Kabakov one of the founders of conceptualism in Russia and a protagonist of Collective Actions a group of artists who have organized participatory actions on the outskirts of Moscow since 1976. Though his poetry is less well known poetry is where he began. After writing in the manner of the Russian modernists who were newly available to Soviet readers during Khrushchevs thaw Monastyrskis interest in John Cage and ideas about consciousness from Western and Eastern philosophical traditions led him to conduct experiments with sound form and the creation of artistic situations involving constructed objects that required viewer engagement to complete.