In 66 Signs of Neon, the use of materials such as melted neon signs created beauty from ugliness, not only of the objects themselves but also of the society from which they came. The exhibition traveled nationally and internationally, serving as a voice for a community left scarred, both physically and emotionally, by the violence. Purifoy collaborated with other artists to create 66 Signs of Neon, a collective work consisting of sixty-six individual assemblages made from the wreckage. Once the products of industrial and consumer culture, the rubble became art through its recontextualization by residents of Watts. The debris from the riot served as material for Purifoy, whose work explores the relationships between Dada assemblage practices, African sculptural traditions, and black folk art. The eruption of the Watts rebellion a year after the center's opening changed Purifoy's artistic vision as he moved toward assemblage and a more obviously socially charged aesthetic. One of the first of its kind in California, the center provided opportunities in the arts for both artists and community residents. He cofounded the Watts Towers Arts Center in 1964 with Judson Powell and Sue Welsh, serving as its first director. His training as a social worker and his own experiences growing up in the South led Purifoy to be committed as an artist to addressing the social and political concerns of the black community. He moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and enrolled at Chouinard Art Institute a year later, receiving a BFA in 1954. Navy and after his discharge in 1946 attended Atlanta University, receiving a master's degree in social work in 1948. He received a bachelor's degree in social science from Alabama State Teacher's College in Montgomery in 1939 and taught wood shop at a Tuscaloosa high school for the next three years. Born in rural Alabama, Noah Purifoy moved to Birmingham when he was five, at a time when racism was a harsh and visible reality.
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