LJUBLJANA.- MGLC, the International Centre of Graphic Arts in Slovenia, announced the appointment of José Roca as the curator of the 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts (2027).
José Roca (Barranquilla, 1962) is a Colombian curator. He was Artistic Director of rīvus, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2022), and Curatorial Advisor of BOG25, the inaugural Bogotá International Biennial of Art and the City, Essays on Happiness (2025).
Roca was co-curator of the 1st San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial, Puerto Rico (2004), the 27th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2006) and Encuentro de Medellín MDE07, Colombia (2007). He was Artistic Director of Philagrafika 2010 in Philadelphia and Chief Curator of the 8 Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2011).
Along with his lifetime partner Adriana Hurtado, he founded and managed FLORA ars+natura, an independent space for contemporary art in Bogotá (2012–22). He was the Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at Tate, London (2012–15), curator of the LARA collection, Singapore (2012–20) and managed the arts programme at the Banco de la República in Bogotá (1994–2008). He is the author of Transpolitical: Art in Colombia 1992–2012 (with Sylvia Suárez); Waterweavers: A Chronicle of Rivers (with Alejandro Martín), published by the Bard Graduate Center in New York in conjunction with the exhibition Waterweavers: The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture (2014); Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection (with NAME editions); and rīvus: A Glossary of Water (with Juan Francisco Salazar), published as a companion to the 23rd Biennale of Sydney.
Roca served on the awards jury for the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and the Prince Claus Awards Committee (2012–16). He was the Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program (2001–2002) and the Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2002–2003). He was the recipient of the CIFO Curatorial Achievement Award (2012) and the Montblanc de la Culture Patronage Award (2017). He is a Baron of Sealand and a citizen of the NSK State in Time. Roca currently lives in Bogotá.
Nevenka Šivavec, Artistic Director and CEO of MGLC, stated: “Nearly 15 years ago, we first encountered José Roca through his profound idea that graphic art serves as the 'unconscious of contemporary art.' By leveraging its capacity to leave an imprint, multiply messages and democratise information, printmaking seamlessly intersects with contemporary art—prioritising conceptual motive over traditional craft. After all this time, we are delighted that José has agreed to bring his imagination, insight and time to the 37th edition of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.”
José Roca said: “I welcome the opportunity to work on the 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. Having previously developed citywide projects that explored the expanded field of print, I am particularly drawn to an event that, for more than seven decades, has continuously redefined and challenged the medium’s boundaries.
Over the past twenty years, my work has increasingly focused on the agency of non-artistic and non-human bodies, including landscapes and bodies of water. At the centre of this proposal lies a simple but far-reaching question: what kinds of traces do we leave in the world and how are those traces registered, transmitted or transformed over time?
The exhibition will approach print not only as a technical medium, but as a broader condition of contact, transfer and inscription. It will therefore include not only works of art, but also material culture, inventions, design objects, scientific artefacts and everyday forms that expand the ontology of the imprint. I envision the project as a collaborative process developed together with a team of local co-curators, whose knowledge and perspectives will be essential in shaping and refining its initial intuitions. Alongside existing works, the Biennale will feature new commissions produced through the MGLC residency programme and print workshop, foregrounding experimentation, process and dialogue between artists, materials and place.”
Founded in 1955, the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts is one of the oldest biennials in the world. It helped position Ljubljana and Slovenian art within an international context and played a pioneering role in the development of similar events worldwide. Today, the Ljubljana Biennale is a vibrant platform for artistic creation and critical reflection. It has evolved from an international exhibition of printmaking into a major contemporary art event that commissions new works, fosters international collaborations and engages diverse audiences through exhibitions, publications and public programmes. The 36th edition (in 2025) was curated by Chus Martínez.
