MOSCOW (REUTERS).- Up-and-coming artists competing for Russia’s top contemporary art prize kicked off a marathon of exhibits in the Russian capital, which hosts the fourth Moscow Biennale. A studio strewn with musty books, pages rustling in an artificial breeze; a multicolored play-dough cube squeezed into a cage; and a sphere made out of hundreds of plastic bags were among the 40 art works contesting the prestigious Kadinsky prize. Named after abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1904), the award hands out cash-prizes of up to $55,100 to modern artists featured at Moscow’s Central House of Artists. “This exhibit cuts across Russia’s contemporary art and art forms of today,” said Shalva Breus, who founded the award in 2007. Breus hailed an