Kari Adelaide Razdow and Max Razdow, Spiral Path, HD Digital Video, 22 minutes (video stills)
Kari Adelaide Razdow
Max Razdow
Spiral Path
August 22- August 27, 2023
Presented by MOTHER Gallery
On view at NADA East Broadway
311 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002
Opening reception, Tuesday, August 22, 5-8 pm
Closing reception, Saturday, August 26, 5-8 pm
Daily hours:
Tuesday, Aug 22: 12-8
Wednesday, Aug 23: 12-7
Thursday Aug 24: 12-7
Friday, august 25: 12-7
Saturday Aug 26: 12-8
Sunday, Aug 27: 11-2 pm
Please join us for the premier screening and exhibition of Spiral Path, a single channel animation by Max Razdow and Kari Adelaide Razdow, on view at NADA East Broadway and presented by MOTHER Gallery. Arrive to journey through a mysterious land, where geography and magic are intertwined. Evoking cult animation from the 1970s and alternate realities from science fiction, fantasy and myth, Spiral Path traces the passage of a nameless traveler (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and his priestess guide (Erin Neufer) as they explore the marvels and perils of a dream-like city. Characters they meet along the way include a cosmic wood nymph (Mickey Sumner), a ponderous wizard (Kasidy Devlin), and a bardic fire tender (Desmond Eastwood), who give hints as to the future they may encounter. Writhing serpents, mistlike norns and celestial dragons evoke the intricacies of a weird poesis, intermingling fate and chance in their midst.
Spiral Path (22 minute HD digital video) is a collaborative work between Max and Kari created between 2020 and 2023. Reinterpreting a series of Max’s drawings and stories, Spiral Path uses digitized layers of ink and pencil drawings, and 2D animation techniques. Kari’s script introduces a poetic balance among symbolic, mythic and natural forms, suggesting a modulated coherence of archetypes, as the film hints at a wider realm to explore.
The animation features the voice of Mickey Sumner, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Erin Neufer, Kasidy Devlin, and Desmond Eastwood. The film score is by Eliot Krimsky, including an original song, "Southern Well.” The score also includes select compositions from Dominique Guiot’s “L’Univers De La Mer” album (France, 1978) and space rock compositions from Mythos’ “Dreamlab” album (Germany, 1975). Spiral Path is co-written and co-directed by Max Razdow and Kari Adelaide Razdow, animated by Max Razdow, and produced by Kari Adelaide Razdow.
Also exhibited are a selection of Max’s colored pencil drawings, created during the time of the animation’s production, some of which are used in Spiral Path. These works include imagery related to the time and place of the animation’s creation: swampy scenes of solitude and vigil, combines of technical and elemental deities, landscapes of recalibration and becoming, evoking a relationship between fantastical and earthbound realms.
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Kari Adelaide Razdow, Ed.D. (2020), Teachers College, Columbia University, curates at The Sphinx NE. Her writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, BOMB, NYLON, Two Coats of Paint, the Walker Art Center Blog, Eyes Towards the Dove,Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the editor of Enchanted Pedagogies, a collection of essays that will be published by Brill's Doing Arts Thinking series, in fall 2023.
Max Razdow, MFA (2008), New York University, is an artist and writer. He curates at The Sphinx NE. He has taught art practice and theory at New York University and University of Massachusetts, and has shown his drawings and text based works internationally and in the US, including Good Naked, MOTHER, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Freight + Volume, Underdonk, Harpa Reykjavik, Jan Dhaese, and more.
