Let's start with Oscar Murillo's A Mercantile Novel exhibit at the David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea (on view through Saturday, June 14). To be honest, the installation is not that interesting for kids. There are some videos of Colombian workers at a chocolate factory screening in a room filled with crates of candy. Chocolate is actually being made in the back of the gallery and you can peek behind the curtain to see the workers but visitors aren't allowed to get close due to health code regulations.

The fun part of this exhibit is that you can sample as many chocolate-covered marshmallows as you'd like. You're even encouraged to take candies with you to give away somewhere else in NYC and take a photo to upload to social media. Will you and your children come away with a deeper understanding of the globalization of the sugar trade? I don't think so, but free chocolate! Yay!

For a more direct approach to the sugar and commerce topic, check out Kara Walker's A Subtlety, which is currently installed in the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg (through Sunday, July 6). Made out of 330 polystyrene blocks and 80 tons of sugar, the 35-foot high, 75-foot long sphinx has a real wow factor.

The political statement here is much clearer: a giant, naked, sugar-white sphinx with a head of a stereotypical female slave wearing a bandana, sitting in the middle of an abandoned sugar factory that's about to be torn down and turned into condos. In fact, the full title of the piece is pretty straight-forward: Marvelous Sugar Baby: an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant. It's provocative in a good way, and it's definitely an unforgettable sight. Plus, being inside the old Domino Sugar Factory, a building we have all seen sitting on the East River for so long, and imagining its history is pretty cool.

But, if you are just looking for more free sweets, you have to go to the other end of the art/commerce equation to a commercial pop-up over in the West Village, where the Wonka candy company has set up a three-day-only Winter Wonka-Land (through Saturday, May 17). Guests can walk through a magical winter wonderland, meet Oompa Loompas and sample the new Peel-a-Pop, the world's first-ever peel-able ice-cream pop, for free. This is not so much of a destination, more of a pit stop if you happen to be going to the High Line or burning a few calories in Hudson River Park.

Art, commerce, sugar. If you really want to get heavily into this topic, head to the Angelika Film Center to see Fed Up, the new documentary that claims to reveal how the food industry, and sugar in particular, is literally making us sick. The filmmakers are asking audiences to try the Fed Up Challenge: giving up sugar for 10 days. You could do that... or you could head back to David Zwirner for more free chocolate. You decide.

Photo Credit for Kara Walker Sculpture Inhabitat Blog