Sunday morning is a quiet time in Denver’s neighborhoods. This image benefits from that fact – there are no cars to block our view, and the absence of diners at this café intensifies the triple incongruity at work here. The size of the portrait in the advertisement on the exterior wall of this café is incongruously large for its surroundings. Two other incongruities pose questions to the viewer. Why is the model posed in a thoughtful, almost puzzled manner – an introspective attitude that does not seem likely to draw crowds of diners to this café? And why would the café place this portrait so that the woman appears to be chewing on the fence when viewed from across the street?

(Shortly after posting this image, I was told that the woman represented on the wall of this cafe is probably an Icelandic singer known as Bjork. Does this context change the meaning of the picture? I would certainly wonder what her picture is doing on the side of a neighborhood cafe in Denver, Colorado.)