Where to Stay in Salt Lake City

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Guides for Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City's Art Scene

Salt Lake City's art world is shaped by the tension between its conservative civic culture and the genuinely progressive creative community that has developed within it. The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art — UMOCA — has been presenting challenging work since its founding in 1931 as the Salt Lake Art Center, making it one of the oldest contemporary art institutions in the Mountain West. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on the University of Utah campus, holds a comprehensive encyclopedic collection spanning 5,000 years of world art history, with free admission for all Utah K-12 students. The Granary District, south of downtown, has emerged over the past decade as the city's most creative neighborhood — a cluster of galleries, studios, and artist residencies in former industrial buildings that represents the leading edge of Salt Lake's contemporary art scene. The Rio Gallery, housed in the spectacular 1910 Rio Grande Depot, presents rotating exhibitions of Utah art in one of the most beautiful gallery spaces in the state. The Gilgal Sculpture Garden, a singular outdoor folk art environment created by stonemason Thomas Child, is one of the most distinctive and memorable art experiences in the entire American West.