It's even possible to use "a state of the art" without a noun following, though I think it's better with one:
"How Are Norms Brought About? A State of the Art of Current Research"
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/978...James C. Fell,
A State-of-the-art of Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Techniqueshttps://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m4jV--nCDxgC"A state of the art of the study of international relations in Latin America"
Arlene Beth Tickner, University of Miami
https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/dissertations/3823/There may be better ways of saying it, but it is absolutely untrue to say that "a state of the art" is actually wrong.
In any case, the most usual US term for this is a literature review.