Hirshhorn Appoints JosÉ Roca Inaugural Curator of Latin American and Latin Diasporic Art

TheHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardenin Washington, DC, has named Colombian curator José Roca as its first curator of Latin American and Latin diasporic art. The new role is being funded by Hirshhorn board chair Estrellita B. Brodsky. Roca, who between 2012 and 2015 served as the Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at London’s Tate, will be charged with curating exhibitions and proposing acquisitions aimed, respectively, at elevating and increasing the museum’s holdings of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

“José Roca arrives at a critical moment for the Hirshhorn as we reimagine our campus design and collection depths to increase access to the nation’s collection of modern and contemporary art,” said Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu in a statement. “Joseph H. Hirshhorn seeded our need for this focused role with his initial gift to the nation in 1966, which included many of the then-groundbreaking artists who have become foundational to our collection. We are indebted to our equally forward-thinking board chair, Dr. Brodsky, for supporting Roca’s appointment, which expands our curatorial team with a focus on fulfillment of our mission.”

The Barranquilla-born Roca—who will work remotely from Bogotá, where he lives—brings with him a wealth of experience. Between 2012 and 2022, with his partner, Adriana Hurtado, he ran the Bogotá-based contemporary art space Flora ars+natura; during much of that time, from 2012 to 2020, he was curator of the Lara collection in Singapore. Roca served as the artistic director of the Twenty-Third Biennale of Sydney in 2022; in 2019, he organized the inaugural exhibition of Miami’s El Espacio 23, the contemporary art space founded by collector Jorge M. Pérez. Among his many other curatorial roles are those of head curator of the Eighth Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2011, and cocurator of the Twenty-Seventh São Paulo Bienal in 2006.

“As a curator who has championed art from the region both from within—I was the director of a museum in Colombia and later of an independent space—and abroad, this is a wonderful opportunity,” said Roca in a statement. “I am grateful to the Hirshhorn Museum and to Estrellita Brodsky for this appointment.”