Untitled (Assemblage) 1967

Noah Purifoy made this untitled assemblage out of found materials sometime in his life. I find myself wondering what these objects once meant, and how they came to be here. The surface is a relief of stuff – bits of wood, metal, fabric, and other unidentifiable fragments all mashed together. The color is mostly brown, but it's a deep, rich brown, like the color of old things that have been sitting around for a while. It gives me the feeling that the artist is using these materials to construct something meaningful out of what others have thrown away. There's a broken wheel at the bottom, for example, that reminds me of the cycle of life and death, and the fact that nothing lasts forever. Maybe this is a way of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world as a place of constant change and transformation. It makes me think of Kurt Schwitters, who also used found materials to make art, and how both artists were able to find beauty in the everyday. It feels so ambiguous, but like, in a good way, right?