Twin Cities' 5 must-see art shows this weekend

OPENING

Joshua McGarvey in-residence

PORCH Gallery (3306 Park Ave. S., Mpls)

Sat., August 4, 7-10 p.m.; screening begins at 7:30 p.m.

Open daily: 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.

Joshua McGarvey loves Jesus. Just kidding. But he does love the idea of Jesus. During this three-week residency at Porch, McGarvey will release the sequel to his hit video, "Here Comes Jesus" (2017). The second season of the videos will screen beginning this weekend. Catch episodes 2, 4 and 6 on August 4. McGarvey received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Exhibition ends Aug. 24.

Photo: David Eberhardt

Floating Library

Lake Phalen in St. Paul

August 4-5, 1-6 p.m.

This is the last weekend for the epic library that you have to visit by boat because it's located in the middle of a lake. Created by artist Sarah Peters, the library is now in its 5^th year. It began on Minneapolis' Cedar Lake and has been making the rounds. Visitors can catch a raft over, browse books, borrow them, and then return them to the raft or a box on land. The floating library has been to many lakes in Minnesota, including St. Anthony's Silver Lake, and it even once made a trip to Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles. Catch it this weekend before it goes into hibernation. For the last weekend, there's also a boat-making workshop and reception at 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 5 at the Minnesota Humanities Center (987 E. Ivy Ave., St Paul.) and a reading/ritual at 4:30 p.m. on Phalen Beach with artist Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen. Read more: http://www.startribune.com/a-st-paul-lake-will-once-again-be-home-to-a-floating-library/488737461/

Above: "Preservation Had Its Share of Irony" by Jeff Millikan. Image courtesy of the Bell Museum and the artist.

Collecting Memories by Jeff Millikan

Bell Museum (2088 Larpenteur Ave. W, St. Paul)

Open daily: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

"Those blades of grass and leaves are all hand-painted," explained artist Jeff Millikan as he noted details in one of the dioramas in his exhibition "Collecting Memory," which opened with the new Bell Museum on July 13. With poetic one-liner titles such as "He Wondered What Patriotic Science Might Look Like," these works exert a subtle presence in the museum's first-floor Nova Gallery. It feels like a conceptual archival excavation — as an artist-in-residence at the Bell, Millikan has taken taxidermied animals and specimens from the museum's archives and reassembled them for a show about extinction and loss that reflects the current cultural crisis surrounding climate change. Exhibition ends Sept. 2. Read more: http://www.startribune.com/forgotten-taxidermy-at-bell-museum-becomes-pointed-art-show-about-climate-change/489894341/

OPENING

The White Page (3400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls)

Sat., Aug. 4, 7-10 p.m.

Yeah Maybe co-founder Conor Dowdle is everywhere around Minneapolis. In this new exhibition by the Minneapolis artist, he presents two long-term projects. The first is "Tontine 2018," a collection of 18 paintings shown as a group show, which will later be sealed and buried as part of a "speculative group investment." Then things get even more mortal: The last living artist of the group will become the owner of all the works. The second part of this show is "Weather Predictions," a series of oil paintings by Dowdle that were recently displayed at the National Weather Center in Oklahoma City. It's a huge day.

ONGOING

"Game On Tilt" by Gerry Bibby

Sat., July 21 from 6-8 p.m.

Gallery hours: Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.