It’s fitting that the only art museum in Arizona dedicated strictly to the new and the now is in Scottsdale, one of the magnetic centers of art in the Southwest. You won’t find any howling coyotes or Kokopelli here; the works are edgy, sometimes confusingly avant-garde, and always interesting.

SmoCA (7374 East 2nd Street, 480/994-2787, www.smoca.org, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Tues.–Wed., 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Thurs., 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Fri.–Sat., noon–5 p.m. Sun., $7 adults, $5 students, kids under 15 free, admission free Thurs.) is located just across the street from the Center for the Arts and has five galleries in a spare, modern space that used to be a movie theater. Special shows and exhibitions rotate often and there’s always at least one gallery showing work from the museum’s permanent collection.