Metro Messages

The photographs in this book are for the most part found art--pictures of pictures--taken in the Paris Metro between 2004 and 2012. The works are divided into three categories. The first section, Tears, consists of texts or images that are deformed, truncated or deconstructed to such an extent that they become ambiguous, incomprehensible or totally abstract compositions of color and form. The section entitled Read consists of texts that are mostly comprehensible but contain an emotional, playful or intellectual element. One example is "Shopping & Fucking," which is shocking for English-speakers but innocuous to other ears: Fucking is the name of a village in Austria. In the section entitled Converse are photographs where graffiti serve as commentary--often ironic, political or even scatological--and are juxtaposed to advertising copy. A good example is the panoramic triptych entitled "Etat de Démence," which is overwritten with a text that translates as "State of Dementia." These Metro Messages communicate the ambiguities of communication. Paris-based writer-photographer Ronald W. Kenyon has also published Divagations: Collected Poetry 1959-1996, A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas: Real Stories from Bahrain and Metro Portraits, the companion volume to Metro Messages.