Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum
- Steve Brown
- Jun 17, 2017
- 3 min read
Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum
62975 Blair Lane Joshua Tree, CA 92252
Open dawn to dusk daily
Free admission, donations accepted
If you love unique art installations, these acres of assemblage art composed of found objects should fascinate you. Wander the grounds among Noah Purifoy's art installations and explore to your heart's content. Perfect for photographers.
The Noah Purifoy Outdoor Art Museum Story
I was the last journalist to interview Noah Purifoy before his horrific death in 2004. I had spent the day at his outdoor assemblage art museum in Joshua Tree, interviewing him on his back porch that afternoon. He sipped from a tall glass of Canadian Club Whisky, no ice, while smoking cigarettes and talking about everything from the day in 1965 when he looked out of the door while teaching art at the Watts Tower Art Center to see someone hurl a Molotov cocktail at a police car, to how he arrived in Joshua Tree.
Noah, a co-founder of the art center, joined with another artist, Judson Powell, to create an exhibition, 66 Signs of Neon, made up of approximately four dozen works of art made from three tons of debris they salvaged from the Watts Riots (Rebellion). The exhibition traveled the country, and Noah's found object assemblage art installations, often with a touch of social commentary, became known and respected.
In the late 1980s, with the support of other artists who told him his art installations needed more room than Los Angeles could provide, Noah moved to Joshua Tree, where I interviewed him in February, 2004.
Noah, then in his eighties, was engaging and inspiring, clearly a creative genius. We talked art and creativity, process vs. product, and I tried to get a good sense of the man behind the works I had been exploring and photographing for hours. When I had to go, Noah told me to bring my friends and come talk art with him. I was honored he'd extend an invitation, and I couldn't wait to return.
A couple days after the story came out, I came by on my way to some event I've long since forgotten. Noah was asleep on the back porch, a half-filled glass of Canadian Club and a full ashtray on the table in front of him. I knocked and he woke up and came to the door.
People had been calling him all the time talking about the story, he said, but nobody had come out to bring him a copy. I gave him several copies, thanked him again for his time, and we said we hoped we'd see each other soon.
I never saw Noah again.
That next week, while working at my desk, a call came in from a photographer. He had gone out to photograph Noah's art after reading my story, and he was upset. The sheriff's department was there, as was the fire department, EMTs, an ambulance, and as he spoke, the coroner arrived. Noah was dead,
At age 86, it was believed that Noah had fallen asleep in his wheelchair while smoking. The resultant fire killed the man whose artistic career had been born from the fires of the Watts Riots (Rebellion).
But while Noah cared far more for the process of artistic creation than for preserving the art he created, the Noah Purifoy Foundation has maintained the site as best they can against the ravages of time and desert weather. Today, it is free to visit the 10 acre site and wander and photograph Noah's installations. Noah's art continues to inspire people from around the world, and continues to attract a great deal of attention, with recent stories from The New York Times Magazine and exhibits of photographs of Noah's work, such as Hannah Collins' summer 2017 exhibit at the Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco.
If you go
The outdoor museum is open dawn to dusk, seven days per week. Donations are accepted, though entrance is free. Please be respectful of the site, and do not try to enter any roped off locations. Brochures and a map are available on site.
Comments