L.A. Artists: Noah Purifoy

Noah Purifoy was born in the rural town of Snow Hill, Alabama in 1917, during the Jim Crow era, and grew up in Birmingham. He received a bachelor's degree in social science and a master's degree in social work before leaving the South in 1950 to settle in Los Angeles, where he enrolled at Chouinard Institute (now CalArts), receiving a BFA in 1956. 

For most of his adult life, Noah Purifoy moved back and forth between making art and doing social work. With both practices, Purifoy explored the intersection of art and life. He co-founded the Watts Towers Arts Center in 1964 and served as its first director, overseeing in-school and after-school arts programs for children, with a focus on junk art. 

In 1965, just one year after the center’s founding, the Watts Rebellion erupted. Purifoy and other artists gathered charred debris from the uprising and transformed it into assemblage artworks. According to Purifoy, this work was intended to “demonstrate how within oneself there’s a creative process going all the time, and that...one’s life should also encompass the creative process. We were trying to experiment with how...you tie the art process in with existence.” These works formed the landmark touring exhibition 66 Signs of Neon.

Purifoy continued making assemblages from found objects, transforming the unwanted and the derelict into art that speaks to prevailing political and social conditions. From 1976 to 1987 he worked for the California Arts Council (CAC), where he helped develop arts programs that brought artists together with communities, schools, and prisons. And in 1989, he moved to the Mojave Desert, where he built an outdoor art museum of assemblage sculptures made entirely from junked objects. Called the Joshua Tree Outdoor Museum, the site is free and open to the public.

Check out this in-depth look at the LACMA exhibition Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada (Jun 7, 2015–Jan 3, 2016) featuring exhibition co-curator Franklin Sirmans:

• Assemblage: art that is made by putting together disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially.

• Collage: art that is made by arranging and adhering pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera onto a supporting surface.

•  Joshua Tree Outdoor Museum : Purifoy lived in the Mojave Desert for the last 15 years of his life, creating ten acres full of large-scale sculpture on the desert floor. Constructed entirely from junked materials, this otherworldly environment is one of California’s great art historical wonders.

• Watts Rebellion: a large series of riots that broke out August 11, 1965, in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles, following an altercation between a police officer and a Black man. The rebellion can be understood as a response to years of disinvestment in education, employment, housing, and healthcare, as well as ongoing police aggression.

• Purifoy only worked with found objects, or junk. How do you think your perception of art would change if you started making artwork with these kinds of materials?

• Purifoy felt that assemblage art was closer to humans' lived experience and existence than any other art form. What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree? Why or why not?

• To create your own assemblage, follow along with Teaching Artist Ismael de Anda III's lesson below! You can view additional how-to videos on LACMA's  Teachable .

Citations

1. Franklin Sirmans, Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada, 9.
2. Karen Anne Mason, “African American Artists of Los Angeles: Noah Purifoy” (interview, Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992), 95.