Central Park – Art Spiel

April 7, 2025April 5, 2025, by Etty Yaniv

Lilac Madar: Poppy Pink in Central Park

Featured Project

*PoppyPink New York [Rehearsal]*, June 2024, Participatory Performance, Central Park, New York, NY. Photo: Yonatan H. Mishal

Lilac Madar, best known for her photomontages and assemblages exploring feminist themes, turned to performance in the wake of October 7, 2023, as she began to grapple with mounting evidence of atrocities committed during the Hamas-led massacre in Israel—including the rape, sexual brutalization, and murder of women. Her grief made creation feel impossible—until a vision emerged: she was lost in Central Park, leaving a trail of pink thread behind her. PoppyPink, for her, is an act of remembrance—a body unraveling in real time, marking the absence and memory of the women violated and silenced. Named in part for artist Inbar Haiman (Pink), murdered at the Nova festival, the performance aims to affirm what art demands: to witness, to endure, to insist on presence. In this interview, we take a closer look at the project and its origins.

December 10, 2024December 10, 2024, by Anna Shukeylo

Object Relations: Michael Gac Levin at My Pet Ram

A painting of a living room

Description automatically generated — We Had an Agreement, 28”x24”, Acrylic on canvas

As one enters My Pet Ram’s humble gallery space full of moderately-sized Gustonesque paintings, the viewer is transported into the surreal personal nooks and crannies of Michael Gac Levin’s reality. His paintings are heavily influenced by his family life. Familiar landscapes are juxtaposed with foreign characters and shapes. The artist tells a fantastical story in this new body of work through a day in the life of two characters embodied by an apple and a tree-like figure.

June 29, 2020June 28, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Gal Nissim – Sci-Art Encounters

*Gal Nissim & Leslie Ruckman, SurveillAnts at Science Gallery Detroit, 2018, live ants, acrylic, sand, wood, electronics. 41.5 X 29 X 29 Inch. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo by Mark Sullivan.*

Gal Nissim creates collaborative experiential multi media installations which stimulate the visitor to track and decode the behaviors of animals through audio-visual patterns, ranging from a colony of living ants in a gallery space to wild life in Central Park. Nissim shares with Art Spiel her fascination with the link between science and art, some insight into her elaborate collaborative process, and on her projects. Our interview process had been taking place before the pandemic and the artist was given an opportunity to bring her responses fairly up to date.

June 20, 2020June 20, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Niki Lederer

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

*Goldenrod*, 2019, Found re-purposed plastic bottles, machine screws, hex nuts, wire, rebar armature, concrete base. Artist with sculpture currently on view at Wolfs Lane Park as part of Pelham Art Center’s Public Art Program.

Niki Lederer is a sculptor working with found materials including discarded umbrellas and post-consumer plastic. Born in London, Ontario and raised in Vancouver, she received her BFA from the University of Victoria and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Group exhibitions include Portal: Governors Island, 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks, Central Park and the Outdoor Sculpture Biennial Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Solo exhibitions include Washington Square Windows, NYU and Preset Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Niki recently collaborated with XAOC Contemporary Ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe8. Currently her re-purposed plastic bottle sculpture is featured at the Pelham Art Center and Wolfs Lane Park and her discarded-umbrella based work will be included in the Wassaic Project 2020 Summer Exhibition. Niki lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

May 29, 2020July 10, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Gwyneth Leech

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

A picture containing building, sitting, large, table

Description automatically generated — *Cocoon for Façade Replacement, 2019* , *Oil on wood panel, 22” x 24”*

Through her paintings of high rise constructions sites, Gwyneth Leech expresses the optimism and anxiety of a rapidly changing New York cityscape. She has been in solo and group shows throughout the United States and Great Britain, including Susan Teller Gallery in New York City; Studio 50 Gallery in Los Angeles; Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Art in Houston Texas; and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum, Scotland. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, American Art Collector Magazine, The Village Voice, and City Realty. She is the subject of a multi-award winning short documentary, The Monolith.