“Art should be a confrontation with a ‘me’ that is always in need of improving.”
For a week in August 1965, Watts, a historically African American neighborhood in Los Angeles, burned. The fires were a protest against decades of the community’s marginalization and mistreatment at the hands of police. This moment in LA civil rights history became known as the Watts Rebellion. Four blocks away, Noah Purifoy worked as director of the Watts Towers Art Center, where he established after-school programs, art lessons, and workshops for the surrounding communities. At the end of that tumultuous week, Purifoy took a wagon to the streets of Watts to collect anything left behind, including scrap steel, burnt wood, singed photographs, and broken neon signs. He used the term “junk art” to indicate that these materials were not only found, but entirely discarded and unwanted.
It was from this debris that Purifoy and other artists created 66 assemblages that were included in the exhibition 66 Signs of Neon, which premiered at the Renaissance of the Arts festival, held at a junior high school in Los Angeles in 1966. With each artist interpreting the events of August 1965, the works “illustrated for the artists…the creation of beauty from ugliness,” the exhibition catalogue explained. The rebellion provided Purifoy with a voice and purpose: “I wasn’t an artist yet until Watts,” he said. “That made me an artist.”
Purifoy was born in 1917 to a large family of sharecroppers in Snow Hill, Alabama. He received a degree in history and education from Alabama State Teachers College and later served in World War II (1939–45) with the Seabees, the US Navy construction battalion. Upon his return home, Purifoy received a masters degree in social work. “I was actually interested in social work,” he said, “because I figured it was a means by which I could help Black people.”
In 1950 Purifoy moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles, taking a job at the LA County Hospital. In 1952, he became the first African American student to be admitted to the Chouinard Art Institute (later renamed CalArts). While in Los Angeles, he was introduced to the Watts Towers, an installation built by Simon Rodia over a period of 33 years, which would have a crucial impact on Purifoy and other LA artists like Betye Saar, David Hammons, and John Outterbridge. The towers—constructed of steel, wire, inlaid tile, glass, shell, pottery—are made entirely from found materials. Still standing after 70 years—through the Watts Rebellion, withstanding weather and the ever-changing infrastructure of LA—the towers represent resilience for the African American community of Watts and greater Los Angeles. In 1964, Purifoy was asked by the Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers to look after the site and the small school that operated there. He is credited as the founding director of the Watts Towers Arts Center (WTAC), a site for classes in visual and performing arts, as well as exhibitions and concerts. It became a place where then-emerging artists, such as Senga Nengudi and Suzanne Jackson, found work.
Unknown (1967) is a surviving example of Purifoy’s early assemblages, made at a time when he was facilitating art programs at WTAC. As Purifoy’s work gained the attention of art galleries and collectors, his view of the art world as a vehicle for change began to change. In 1976 Purifoy was appointed to the California Arts Council; as a member of this state agency, he worked on developing artists-in-community programs in prisons, schools, and hospitals. His goal was to direct artists away from the art world to a more broadly inclusive community. “I was looking for another vehicle,” he said, “to see to what extent one single person can effect change in the large world that we live in.”
In 1989 Purifoy moved to Joshua Tree, CA. There, he transformed a parcel of land into the Outdoor Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Sculpture, which now contains more than 120 sculptures created from objects collected in junk and scrap yards, and other discarded items. The Fire Next Time (After James Baldwin) I, II, and III (1994–95) were completed during Purifoy’s early years in Joshua Tree. After the death of his best friend, Purifoy began creating tombstone-like assemblages using found detritus. Living in the desert, he was fascinated with how the desert climate weathered these pieces over time. “Junk art, assemblage art…it’s as close to human existence because it’s all castoffs we are utilizing here,” he said. Purifoy’s legacy invites us to become actively invested in the aspects of the world, and of ourselves, that demand attention.
José Miguel Camacho, Assistant Educator, Department of Learning and Engagement, 2024
Note: opening quote is from Cándida Smith, Richard. “ART IS A CONFRONTATION WITH A ‘ME’ THAT NEEDS IMPROVING.” VoCA Journal, November 13, 2016. https://journal.voca.network/art-is-a-confrontation-with-a-me-that-needs-improving/.
