Fine Arts Center Announces Appointments to University Gallery and New WORLD Theater.

The Fine Arts Center is pleased to announce the appointments of Loretta Yarlow as Gallery Director for University Gallery and Andrea Assaf as Artistic Director for New WORLD Theater.

Loretta Yarlow comes to the University of Massachusetts with many years of experience as a curator, critic, and director of professional and academic galleries around the world. Most recently she served as Director of Exhibitions at Pratt Institute, from 2002 - 2004, where she organized exhibitions of the works of major artists as well as of faculty, alumni and students in galleries located on Pratt's Brooklyn and Manhattan campuses.

From 1988 - 2002 she was Director/Curator of the Art Gallery of York University in Toronto, Canada. In that capacity, Ms. Yarlow was responsible for a major educational facility that played a significant role in the educational, cultural and intellectual life of the university and surrounding community. She premiered the first solo exhibitions in Canada of work by leading artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Richard Tuttle, Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Diana Thayter, Tacita Dean, and Juan Munoz.

Loretta's experience at York University included overseeing the gallery's exhibitions, award-winning publications, and educational programs, as well as the University's collection and acquisitions. She set up apprenticeship programs for MA and MBA students, established a course in museum/gallery practice and organized a volunteer training program for student docents. In her fourteen years at York she was able to establish an endowment program, oversee extensive renovations to the gallery, and establish an Advisory Board.

She was Commissioner of the Canadian Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a master's in education and fine arts from Harvard University, specializing in museum education, and had served as an adjunct professor at York University.

As the new Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater, Andrea Assaf succeeds Interim Artistic Director Talvin Wilks, who guided the organization for the past two years.

Andrea is an interdisciplinary theater artist, writer and educator with a background in community-based arts, post-colonial studies and cross-cultural performance. She holds a Masters Degree in Performance Studies from New York University and has worked extensively as a director and facilitator in civically engaged arts programs. Of her appointment, Assaf says, “It is a great honor to follow Roberta Uno and Talvin Wilks in this position of leadership at New WORLD Theater. It is a privilege to join an organization with a 25-year history of innovation and excellence. And it is food for the soul to be part of New WORLD’s vision and mission, bringing the margins to the center.”

Assaf, who describes herself as “a hybrid artist of a hybrid generation,” says she is “encouraged and excited by New WORLD’s commitment to artists of color and to a new, progressive vision for creative change through the arts.”

Of his successor, Wilks states, “New WORLD Theater is extremely fortunate to have Andrea Assaf as Artistic Director. She has the vision, energy and experience to lead the theater through this period of transition and into an even more exciting future. As a creative artist in her own right, a community activist and a respected scholar, her skills and talents embrace all of New WORLD’s areas of activity.”

From 2001-04, Assaf served as Program Associate with Animating Democracy, a project of Americans for the Arts that fosters civic dialogue through the arts. She has also directed and co-created numerous original theater and performance pieces in New York and around the country. Recent projects include Parang Sabil (Sword of Honor) as guest director with the Philippine dance troupe Kinding Sindaw (2003); Globalicities, a full-length solo show featured in the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival; and Fronteras Desviadas / Deviant Borders, a bi-national collaboration currently in progress examining gender identity and exploitation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Assaf has worked as a teacher and arts facilitator with numerous theaters and institutions, including the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange; the Meisner Extension of NYU’s undergraduate drama department; the Resources for Social Change workgroup of Alternate ROOTS; the Panata coalition of Filipino, Filipino-American and solidarity artists; John Jay College of the City University of New York; and the Actors Workshop of Boston.