Final Vortex

In Final Vortex we find ourselves on the fringe of the creative, innovative movement which characterized the turn of the century. Italy and Spain, Russia, the East, and both North and Latin America are on this fringe, but only in the geographical, not the creative, sense. In these regions there emerge centers which, like Vienna, Paris or Brussels, can boast artistic giants - one need only point to Gaudí in Spain or Tiffany in the United States. The surprising photographs shown in this film (mostly unpublished until now) testify in a spectacular manner to the fantastically rapid spread of this movement all over the world, a phenomenon manifested on this scale and with this directness for the first time in the history of art and customs. This development continued, only to be destroyed in the immense drama of the First World War, which generated a malaise, bitter and destructive, in which the purpose of innovation was reversed. Progress suddenly became an instrument of death: a violent and bitter shattering of mankind's illusions.

© 1998-2008 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.