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Devin Powers, Fifty Miles of Elbow Room, 2007 |
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55. FIFTY MILES OF ELBOW ROOM BY REV. F.W. MCGEE, 1931 REMIX: DEVIN POWERS, FIFTY MILES OF ELBOW ROOM, 2007 Upon first listening this song seems incredibly joyful, with high voices, rhythmic clapping and expansive lyrics. However, on closer listening it is revealed they sing of a utopia that is free and plentiful with room for everyone, but which only exists as a hopeful dream. As Powers notes, “’Fifty Miles of Elbow Room’ is no doubt a song for the oppressed, it places hopes for the fulfillment of dreams in heaven.” Powers believes the physical world is all there is. In his view, ‘Fifty Miles of Elbow Room’ is a tragic song but it also contains the human trait that animates our will to keep living against the many adversities of life – hope. In his illustration, he has drawn out the songs’ vision and balanced it with his own feelings of sadness that the song had to exist at all. Devin lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, his complex geometric works and hypercubes, attempt to visualise a world outside of our grasp, beneath our perceptions of reality. His work can be seen at the Pierogi 2000 Galleries' Flat Files in Williamsburg as well as at the 2007 Smack Mellon Emerging Artists Exhibition. |
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