José Roca, a Colombian curator who describes graphic art as the 'unconscious of contemporary art,' has been appointed to curate the 37th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts in 2027. Established in 1955, the Slovenian exhibition is one of the world's oldest biennials. Roca previously served as artistic director of the 2022 Biennale of Sydney and chief curator of the 2011 Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, and has held curatorial roles at the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial, the Bienal de São Paulo, and the inaugural Bogotá International Biennial of Art and the City. He also co-founded and managed the FLORA ars+natura off-space in Bogotá for ten years.
The appointment matters because Roca's curatorial vision reframes printmaking not merely as a technical medium but as a broader condition of contact, transfer, and inscription. His proposal will include material culture, inventions, design objects, and scientific artefacts alongside artworks, expanding the ontology of the imprint. The biennale will also feature new commissions produced through the MGLC residency programme and print workshop, emphasizing experimentation and dialogue between artists, materials, and place. This approach could reinvigorate a historic biennial by connecting graphic arts to contemporary ecological and material concerns.