Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum

“I do not wish to be an artist. I only wish that art enables me to be.“

– Noah Purifoy, 1963

Noah S. Purifoy (August 17, 1917 – March 5, 2004) was an African-American visual artist and sculptor, co-founder of the Watts Towers Art Center, and creator of the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum. He lived and worked most of his life in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California. Purifoy was the first African American to enroll in Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) as a full-time student and earned his BFA in 1956, just before his fortieth birthday. He is best known for his assemblage sculpture, including a body of work made from charred debris and wreckage collected after the Watts Riots of August 1965.

Noah Purifoy’s “Outdoor Desert Art Museum” is 7.5 acres of open land displaying Purifoy’s assemblage sculptures, all created on-site between 1989 and 2004.

Visitors must take dirt roads to access the site, where they’ll be greeted with a hand-painted “Blair Lane” street sign and dozens of large-scale sculptures made from materials such as castoff metals, burnt wood, and blown-out rubber tires. A brochure is available at the entrance naming the various sculptures and the years in which they were built.

The sculptures are all assemblage pieces, adorned with “junk” bits like hamburger wrappers, broken computer keyboards, or glass fragments, and most are large enough to walk into and experience from dizzying angles. The works range from overt political statements like White/Colored–which features a toilet bowl next to a drinking fountain–to more site-specific pieces like Shelter, made of wood salvaged from a neighbor’s house that burned down. Come on a sunny day and the bright pink displays can seem charming and whimsical; on stormy afternoons, the same structures can seem uninviting and haunting. (Once, a visitor was nearly attacked by a bat!)

It was the dramatic and harsh landscape of the Mojave that inspired Purifoy to create his assemblage pieces, which he referred to as “Environmental Sculpture.” Purifoy intended for his works to be displayed in their natural environment and process of decay. Resisting the ideologies of institutionalized art, Purifoy insisted, “I do assemblage. I don’t do maintenance.” Curious and excited to see what role nature could play in the life of an artwork, he beckoned the inclement weather. “Changes are an integral part of life itself,” he argued.

Purifoy himself was no stranger to the themes of resistance and change. Before moving to the desert he served as the founding director of the Watts Towers in nearby Los Angeles, where he witnessed firsthand the Watts Riots of the 1960s. After the riots subsided, Purifoy took to the streets and collected debris, such as broken furniture and melted neon signs. He then channeled his anger and bitterness into a collaborative art piece. Working with artists from a variety of racial backgrounds, Purifoy used the Watts rubble to create 66 Signs of Neon, a symbolic and hopeful representation of change in an otherwise chaotic landscape. “We wanted to tell people that if something goes up in flames it doesn’t mean its life is over,” said Purifoy of his most famous work.

Though 66 Signs of Neon achieved notoriety and traveled to nine universities between 1966 and 1968, it was only shown in student centers instead of traditional galleries. And although some critics have referred to Purifoy’s sculptures as helping to “redefine black consciousness in art,” his work, for the most part, has always remained outside the gallery walls.

Today, the Noah Purifoy Foundation works to preserve Purifoy’s site and artistic vision, and it has expanded the Outdoor Desert Museum to encompass the 2.5 acres on which his studio is located.

Before you go visit the website at   www.noahpurifoy.com/visit/    for visitors info and directions.