Noah Purifoy's 'Junk Dada' Assemblage Works Featured in LACMA Exhibition

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented 'Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada' from June 7 to September 27, 2015 at its 5905 Wilshire Boulevard location in Los Angeles. Purifoy spent his final fifteen years creating sculptures and installations in Joshua Tree, California's desert landscape, using locally found objects for his assemblages. Exhibition works like The Last Supper II (1989) incorporate rusted silverware and sardine cans, transforming discarded materials into meaningful compositions. Another piece, The Summer of 1965 (1996), arranges photos, pigments, a skull, and various objects with mysterious potency. Purifoy's Ode to Frank Gehry (1999) blends architectural references with hokey humor, while Rags and Old Iron I & II (1989) showcase decisive arrangements of beads and textiles. Three mixed-media paintings from 1993—Picket Fence, Four Horsemen, and Crucifixion—feature black and gray cubes floating over textured white grounds. The exhibition title references both Dada's use of readymades and the concept of 'junk data,' highlighting how Purifoy's work transforms refuse into unified compositions that retain their material histories. His desert-created pieces demonstrate a toughness balanced with lightheartedness, with works compelling viewers through mystical simplicity and honest renderings from observation.