Since 1989, the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum’s distinctive assemblage art has influenced the desert — and been shaped by it in return.
Explore 10 acres of environmental sculptures.
Noah Purifoy’s fantastical junkyard oasis has long been a pilgrimage site for in-the-know Joshua Tree sojourners. Now Purifoy’s work is at LACMA.
I roamed through the Noah Purifoy exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of art yesterday. The exhibit is entitled "Junk Dada," so I expected to see arranged junk statues. Instead, I saw beautiful art created from recycled materials (yes, junk, but beautiful). I learned the following about Noah Purifoy: He was born on August 17, 1917 in Snow Hill, Alabama to sharecropper cotton picking parents, the son and daughter of slaves, where he learned to make something out of nothing. He attended the Snow Hill Institute, a school for the African American community that was modeled on the nearby Tuskegee Institute. He later lived in Birmingham until moving to Los Angeles in 1950 at age 33 to attend Chouinard Art Institute, now a part of CalArts. Here he was introduced to Marcel Duchamp and others and their assemblage art that was part of the Surrealist and Dadist art movement. He also saw Simon Rodia's towers in Watts and later became founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center where art was taught to the community. Purifoy received his Masters in Social Work and believed in the power of art to effect change. "On August 11, 1965, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts erupted in one of the most violent race rebellions in American history. A reaction to decades of oppression, economic disenfranchisement, and racial profiling endured by the African American community, the revolt left thirty-four people dead and devastated Watts, which was engulfed by fire for a week. In the riot's wake, Purifoy, the founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center, gathered a group of artists...together, they created '66 Signs of Neon,' an exhibition of works constructed from the debris they had collected...'66 Signs of Neon' traveled to nine venues across the country between 1966 and 1969" (quoted from the exhibit description). In 1972, Purifoy became director of community services at Central City Mental Health, a facility started in 1968 to address the psychological issues affecting L.A.'s African American community. In 1976 Purifoy was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California Arts Council where he served for 12 years. In 1989, at the age of seventy-two, Purifoy moved to Joshua Tree, CA where he transformed a ten-acre parcel of desert with 120 large-scale sculptures composed entirely of junk. Six of these large-scale works are installed in this exhibit, two outside. Noah Purifoy died on March 5, 2004 in Joshua Tree. Here are my photos of some of the art work that I enjoyed: "Wooden Tile," 1988, Construction "Untitled," n.d. Assemblage sculpture "Black, Brown, and Beige (After Duke Ellington)," 1989, Combine "Snow Hill," 1989, Construction. This works depicts Purifoy's birthplace of Snow Hill Alabama, from the air. "Joshua Tree," 1989, Mixed-media construction "Untitled (Bed Headboard)," 1958, Construction. This headboard, Purifoy's earliest surviving work, was made during his eleven-year career as a designer of modernist furniture. "Urban Sprawl," 1989 "Office Chair," 1988 "The Last Supper II," 1988, Assemblage "Charisma," 1989 "Zulu," 1989, Construction "Rags and Old Iron I (After Nina Simone)," 1989 Assemblage Purifoy referenced jazz in numerous works from the late 1980's. Simone wails in the song "Rags and Old Iron." "Hanging Tree," 1990, Mixed media. "Earl Fatha Hines," 1990, Mixed media. "Untitled," 1992 "The Summer of 1965," 1996 Close up showing photos of the Watts riots. "Untitled," 1993, Mixed media "Strange Fruit," 2002, Assemblage Referring to both the Billie Holiday song abut the history of lynching in this country and to the history of tar-and-feather attacks on African Americans...works that confront our nation's history of social injustice and violence. (description by museum) "Spaceman," 1993, Assemblage sculpture "Untitled," 2000, Mixed Media "No Contest (Bicycles)," 1991, Assemblage sculpture "From the Point of View of the Little People," 1994, Mixed-media construction. "Law and Order," 1965, Plexiglas assemblage. "Untitled," 1967, Mixed media "Ode to Frank Gehry," 2000, Assemblage sculpture. "A large abstract form built out of discarded shipping containers...pays homage to the renowned ...architect and to Purifoy's own architectural aspirations." "65 Aluminum Trays," 2002, Assemblage sculpture.
When artist Noah Purifoy — legendary for his assemblage sculpture — moved to Joshua Tree from Los Angeles in 1989, the yucca-, cholla- and sagebrush-dotted landscape became his gallery space. It became the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Sculpture, to be exact. Today...
A photo tour of Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Museum
Noah Purifoy (1917 - 2004) was an African-American artist and co-founder of the Watts Towers Art Center. He is best know for his "assemblage sculptures", including a body of work made from charred debris and wreckage collected after the Watts Riots of August 1965. In 1989, Mr. Purifoy moved from LA to Joshua Tree, CA. During the last 15 years of his life, he filled 10 acres of his high desert landscape with "assemblage art", working with all kinds of materials, much of it discarded trash and random desert debris. I found it really interesting, and if you're in the area, it's well worth a visit. This photo gives you a feel for what the property looks like... it goes on for 10 acres and includes all varieties of assemblage sculptures! And it's free, which is nice. I think this one is called "Voting Booth", which might give us a sense of Mr. Purifoy's views of our election process! This one's called "Sixty-Five Aluminum Trays". Called "No Contest", I like the way the bikes look against the desert sky. Below is "Shelter", built from wood and debris salvaged from a neighbor's house in the desert that burned down. Below are shots from inside "Shelter", a really strange assemblage of stuff. Below is "Kirby Express", named from the old fashioned vacuum cleaners. There are also beer cans, a baby carriage, smudge pot and swamp cooler all mounted on bicycle wheels and affixed to a make-shift railroad track! Hope you enjoyed this tour of the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum. Thanks for stopping by!
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Noah Purifoy transformed the wreckage from the 1965 Watts riots into art, and in doing so, he transformed much more.
Junk Speak Trash gyres, pre-objective monumentality, a rental. —Lisa Robertson I can’t be the only one who’s looked at Duchamp’s “Fountain” and thought what beautiful things toilets are. Marcel Duchamp, Founatain, 1917 The sinuous, vaguely...
A path of small stones half-buried in the desert sand leads to an unusual structure: a white, ramshackle platform perched several feet above the […]
LOS ANGELES — Noah Purifoy could be considered something of a late bloomer. He was already in his thirties when he moved from his native Alabama to Los Angeles to attend Chouinard Art School (now CalArts).
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Joshua Tree National Park is located in southern California, just two hours east of Los Angeles. The park is named after the many Joshua trees that line its incredible landscape. It's a beautiful park and
LOS ANGELES — Noah Purifoy could be considered something of a late bloomer. He was already in his thirties when he moved from his native Alabama to Los Angeles to attend Chouinard Art School (now CalArts).
