Eye-catching art gracing otherwise nondescript Detroit-area buildings and stark images of workers in factories are the focus of two photographic exhibitions opening in mid-September at Wayne State University's Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs.

"Talking Shops: Detroit's Soulful Signage" will open Sept. 10 in the library's Woodcock Gallery. "This Working Life: Labor and Industry Photographs" opens Sept. 17 in the main gallery.

"Talking Shops" features colorful Detroit-area signage recorded on film by Birmingham-based photographer David Clements. "This Working Life" is a collection of black-and-white photographs from Russ Marshall, whose studio is in Detroit.

The Clements exhibit gets its name from how murals and signs on buildings convey distinct messages, some with great exuberance and others quietly. It includes photos of murals and advertisements on the walls of car repair shops, beauty shops, storefront churches, restaurants, bars, stores, and other structures.

Rather than recording depressing aspects of urban neighborhoods that may have seen better days, Clements captures the vibrant, the colorful, and the positive in those neighborhoods. His work is a tribute to plucky entrepreneurs who have provided the exteriors of mundane old buildings as a backdrop for mural artists and innovative sign-makers. Visitors to the exhibit may even find themselves leaving with an irresistible urge to view some of the buildings firsthand.

Clements work has been exhibited at the Detroit Historical Museum, the Center for Creative Studies and in galleries and museums in Chicago, New Jersey and New Mexico. Douglas Haller is the exhibit curator.

Marshall's "The Working Life" exhibit focuses on workers inside and outside of factories, some toiling at their jobs, others taking a break. Most of the photos in the collection were taken during the 1980s and early 90s, when Marshall was contracted by industrial labor unions to take photos for publications.

A line of press operators at an auto trim plant, a grinder at a stamping plant, striking workers on a picket line, workers at a steel factory blast furnace all are among the images in an exhibit that pays tribute to American factory workers. Interspersed with the photographs are labor poems penned by Philip Levine, Jim Daniels, M. L. Liebler and others.

Marshall's work has appeared in many publications and exhibits. A 1980's poster commemorating Detroit's Dodge Main auto plant and titled "Remember the Main" featured one of the photographer's most widely recognized images. William LeFevre is the exhibit curator.

The Clements exhibit runs through December. The Marshall exhibit will be in place through October. The Reuther Library galleries are open 9 a.m.- 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Admission is free. For more information, call the library at (313) 577-4024.