Best Of Tucson®

Best Art Museum

Tucson Museum of Art

Who'd have thunk it? The conflicts wracking this museum of regional and Hispanic art have all the drama of a 1920s gangland shootout in Chicago. But the museum's fans are hoping the brand-new director, Robert Knight, will have the street cred of an old-time federal marshal, and will whip the place into shape. Through the comings and goings of staff, Julie Sasse, curator of contemporary art, has kept TMA on track art-wise. Some of her best shows in the past year were Kate Breakey's Small Deaths exhibition, featuring giant painted photos of tiny dead birds, and the stimulating Arizona Biennial, where the runaway star was Lucy Petrovich's "Desert Views, Desert Deaths," a terrifying video installation that simulates the experience of a migrant lost in the desert.

Runners up:

2. University of Arizona Museum of Art, University of Arizona, 621-7567
3. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1030 N. Olive St., 621-7968