NEW YORK, NY.- The Times Square Alliance announced that Sherry Dobbin will join as the new Director of Public Art. Dobbin will be responsible for programming Times Square with installations and performance art from artists around the world. Dobbin most recently served as Director of The Watermill Center. She brings over 20 years of experience having worked internationally within performance arts, visual arts and public art and having served as a producer, administrator and curator.

Dobbin will lead Times Square Arts, the Alliance’s public art program that works to bring high-quality and cutting-edge art to the Crossroads of the World. She will draw on her experience curating both installations and performance art in the U.S. and abroad to oversee Times Square’s compelling 2012 season of public art projects. Additionally, she seeks to create an artist-in-residence program in Times Square.

“Times Square Arts is a dynamic program and we have found it a dynamic leader,” said Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance. “Sherry’s experience abroad and at The Watermill Center will be instrumental in helping the Alliance to continue to bring the best of contemporary art to Times Square, and to explore the limitless possibilities that the Crossroads of the World offers as a space for public art.”

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, presents temporary cutting-edge art and performances in multiple forms and media to the 360,000 daily visitors to Times Square, making it one of the highest profile public arts programs in the United States.

“I look forward to joining the Alliance,” said Sherry Dobbin, Director of Public Art at the Times Square Alliance. “Much of the most exciting art today is only accessible to small audiences. This is a great opportunity for artists to have their work exposed to such large numbers and for the general public to be exposed to work that is often on the fringe of their daily experience. In a city with such a robust arts tradition, it only makes sense that New York’s center, Times Square, is a center for art as well.”

As Director of The Watermill Center, the international arts center founded by Robert Wilson, Dobbin developed an international, cross-disciplinary artist-in-residence program, produced large site-specific events and developed a Humanities Program including lectures, screenings, education and tours of the collection. She established partnerships for the work developed at Watermill with presenting venues in NYC and abroad, an online presence for the artist work, and partnerships with universities and cultural agencies.

Prior to her tenure at Watermill, Dobbin was in the UK for ten years where she was a Project Director in arts-led regeneration across London and East of England. She orchestrated collaborations between artists, cultural organizations, and the public and private sectors to establish and produce arts programming, permanent urban design, and cultural infrastructure. She was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (UK) and awarded an Escalator Leadership award by the Arts Council England.

Dobbin serves on the Executive Committee of The Watermill Center/BHWF, the Advisory Committee of CAVE arts, the Advisory Committee of East End Stories for Parrish Art Museum and is a member of the UK Association of Art Historians. She was a juror for the Hamptons International Film Festival. She holds an art history degree from University of London and a degree in Theater Studies from Boston University. Her partner is Dr. Marc Fasanella, a Visiting Professor of Art, Architecture and the Environment at Stony Brook University in the Sustainability Studies program and the son of self-taught, social realist painter, Ralph Fasanella.

Since its inception, Times Square Arts has featured works by a diverse group of prominent and emerging artists. Recent projects include: Performa ’11, Hidemi Takagi's Blender, Meeting Bowls by mmmm..., Risa Jaroslow and Dancers, Theatre For One, Electronic Arts Intermix and MTV, Urban Remix, Liz Magic Laser's Flight, Kyu Seok Oh's Counting Sheep, The Times Square Armory Show, Creative Time’s Key to the City, Shen Wei Dance Arts, and Hip Hop Theater Festival.