Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art — Attraction in Scottsdale

Those who follow my reviews closely have before heard me talk about the 3 jewels of the Phoenix museum scene - The Phoenix Art Museum, The Heard Museum, and Music Instrument Museum.

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art is a good candidate for a fourth museum. This little museum in Old Towne Scottsdale really punches above it's weight, bringing in fascinating new art from the global stage. I've seen fascinating paintings and glass work here, but they really shine with multimedia/digital work.

With limited gallery space and seemingly no permanent collection, there is a downside to being a small museum. If one exhibition is turning over it's distinctly possible that only one or two other gallery spaces will be open. Now, I get in for free so if I show up not realizing this, I can roll with the punches. If you're making a special trip to see SMoCA just make sure you've triple checked that enough gallery spaces are open to make it worth the trip.

Note, they actually also keep gallery space next door at the performing arts center as well, so if you feel stimied by a closed gallery space, there is actually more to look at!

Even when it's fully opened it is a small space, so give yourself an hour and a half tops for this one. It's roughly in walking distance of another Scottsdale Museum, the Museum of the West, so you could make a museum day of it. You are also close to everything else Old Towne Scottsdale has to offer so this can be the first stop of a day that gets...

Summer is our museum expeditions time of the year. In Arizona, especially the Valley of the Sun, el sol gets pretty darn hot so one scampers towards activities that are mostly indoors and undercover, so Museums, Art Exhibits, Galleries and other indoor events are the natural solution to our annual dilemma. This week we decided on a museum, especially one we had not had the opportunity of previously visiting, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (fondly known as SMoCa). I was fascinated with its mission to show design, modern works of art as well as architecture within the spacious confines of its four galleries. Although a relatively small museum is set up and layout is nicely created. We were glad we could experience the art and styles of Carolina Anibar-Fernadez: Oleaje and Dorothy Fratt’s: Color Mirage exciting and poignant exhibits during our visit. The Roelof Knol: the space in between and his paper shape optical and visual art was fanciful and intriguing. Before we left, we stopped off at their shop. Their gift shop, although not huge, has some very interesting and unique items to offer, we obviously purchased an artistic yet functional and decorative art set. SMoCa is not only a great place to come in and cool off, but it will enlighten the senses, open your curiosity and inspire you to seek more, more art, and spur the imagination. Kudos to the staff...

This review highlights one of workers who made visiting this museum more memorable. He is an older Hispanic gentleman, who speaks English and Spanish, by the name of Lou (I didn't get his name initially but the front desk was able to provide it to me). Lou was fantastic! He took the time to explain some of the art pieces to me and my mom. He also showed me how to view some of the art pieces from different angle to display something I wouldn't have notice on my own. However, my favorite exhibit was Infinite. I had no idea each sphere has a speaker and played by a string quartet. It plays for about 16 minutes, so watching the spheres illuminate and listening to the music during that time was magical. I told Lou how I enjoyed this museum more than the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego but he was part of the reason why I enjoyed it. Thank you, Lou for making this museum more wonderful 😊 Will definitely be making...