José Roca Named Curator of 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts
9June 18, 2026
MGLC, the International Centre of Graphic Arts in Slovenia, has appointed Colombian curatorJosé Rocacurator of the 37thLjubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, to take place in 2027. Roca was curatorial advisor of BOG25, the inaugural Bogotá International Biennial of Art and the City and the artistic director of the Twenty-Third Biennale of Sydney in 2022. In 2024, the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC,named him inaugural curator-at-large of Latin American and Latin diasporic art. With his partner, Adriana Furtado, he cofounded and ran Bogotá’s FLORA ars+natura, an independent contemporary art space between 2012 and 2022. Previous roles include those of adjunct curator of Latin American art at Tate, London (2012–15) and curator of Singapore’s LARA collection (2012–20).
Established in 1955, theLjubljanaBiennale of Graphic Arts is one of the oldest biennials in the world. Recent curators include Chus Martínez (2025) and Ibrahim Mahama (2023).
“Nearly 15 years ago, we first encountered José Roca through his profound idea that graphic art serves as the ‘unconscious of contemporary art,’” said Nevenka Šivavec, artistic director and CEO of MGLC, in a statement. “By leveraging its capacity to leave an imprint, multiply messages and democratize information, printmaking seamlessly intersects with contemporary art—prioritizing 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.”
“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,” said Roca in a statement. “At the center 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?”
Roca promised that the exhibition, which he envisions as a collaborative process with a team of local cocurators, would “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.” New commissions are planned through the MGLC residency program and print workshop.