A mother and child view one of Mr. Power’s pieces. Photo: Christos Katsiaouni.

Two recently-installed gallery shows are attracting some buzz from art aficionados with children.

Visual media artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, just opened a fascinating wall-to-wall light and audio installation titled "Voice Array" at Bitforms Gallery on 20^th Street that encourages visitors to interact vocally. Art-goers can go up to an intercom and speak or sing into it and the installation records their voices and remixes it into a matrix of 288 pre-recorded voices and over 500 flashing LED lights.

“Not only can you touch the artwork, but you have to!” Mr. Lozano-Hammer told Scooter. “By pressing the button and leaving your voice behind, the piece gets its ‘crowd-sourced’ content.

Nearby, at Joshua Liner Gallery on 28th Street, Steve Powers (formerly of Deitch Projects) has a solo exhibition called "A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures." The graffiti and public art guru presents an assortment of paintings on aluminum that are bursting with vibrant colors.

“'A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures’ combines word, image and color to create paintings that distill the complexities of love and life into simple ideograms that will amuse youths and amaze adults,” Mr. Powers explained to us.

For more information on various art installations and opportunities for your family that is both engaging and well done, check out Observer.com’s Art of Parenting.

“Participatory art creates experiences that are engaging and intimate, where the public is an integral part of the artwork,” concluded Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

He is right on the ball there!

At age 3, Sophie Neale wrote “Baby’s First Blog” (“blob,” she called it then) for much-missed Cookie magazine. Her efforts caught the eye of Time’s James Poniewozik, who proposed she be signed to a book deal to write about growing up in public. While not yet ready to pen her memoirs, Sophie (now 8 years old) takes us on a tour of lower Manhattan art galleries as only a child can.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation

159 Bleecker Street

Sophie explored literally hundreds of alternative and outlandish pieces at this art collective’s Brucennial exhibition, timed to coincide with the Whitney Biennial. This year’s show, curated by Vito Schnabel, encompasses over 300 works by Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring — along with up-and-coming talents. Sophie found plenty of art to trigger her imagination.

7Eleven Gallery

711 Washington Street

Don’t be fooled by Z Behl’s fantastical, life-sized sculptures rendered in oil paint and day-glow in her show “Battle for Lagniappe.” What appears to be a dreamland adventure has plenty of adult humor peppered throughout. The artist, known for her work on music videos and set designs, has filled the newly opened 7Eleven Gallery with an underwater world that completely transforms the gallery. Sophie was in her element exploring the comical flying creatures, a besieged pirate ship, mer-creatures and seas monsters.

BradFisherTown

23 Second Avenue (by appointment; see website)

Artist Brad Fisher recently moved to new studio space just off of the Bowery. His figurative and ironic multi-media paintings have earned the artist many well-known fans including Renée Zellweger, NBC’s Ben Silverman, Drew Barrymore and Marc Jacobs. Sophie got a unique opportunity to tour BradFisherTown and create her first acrylic on canvass: a sure masterpiece! Fisher officially debuted his new atelier on March 23.

 Photos by Christian Pielow