Talking Shops

Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art documents work that is certain to disappear long before its equally certain elevation to the status of lost cultural treasure. Clements' photos are straightforwards representations of their subjects. As a photographer he lets the artfulness and expressivity of the signs take precedence over his own. Most often he shoots straight on, usually tight on the content. The captions simply name the business and location. It's left to the readers to appreciate the virtues of the books art, but that's good training for spotting similar examples in situ, which is the only practical way to actually view this ultimately non-collectible folk art

Vibrant signs, murals and more from Detroit streets. Give it to anyone who has all the wrong ideas about our city."

While others might look around the central city and see dirt, decay, and desertion, Clements has eyes for 'outsider' art laced with hot color, brash humor, and high energy on the walls of the city's most modest stores and bars."

David Clements has taken it upon himself to preserve as many examples on film as one talented photographer can, and to press them between the covers of this book. . . . Wisely, he's chosen to limit his perspective to metropolitan Detroit, a community he knows intimately. But even in that he has excepted a challenge, for the Motor City is among America's richest when it comes to folk advertising art. . . . Talking Shops belongs on the coffee table in every living room where the conversation is in danger of losing momentum, and a shelf in every library devoted to photography and the development of the American ideal."