José Roca appointed curator of the 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts

MGLC, the International Centre of Graphic Arts in Slovenia, is pleased to announce the appointment of José Roca as the curator of the 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.

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 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.”