The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has announced the appointment of José Roca as the inaugural Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator at Large of Latin American and Latin Diasporic Art. Roca will support Hirshhorn leadership in assessing and expanding acquisitions of Latin American and Latin American diasporic holdings, initiating exhibitions and research, and broadening the field of support for the national museum of modern and contemporary art.
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.
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.
I am proud to support the Hirshhorn and the Museum’s wide-ranging vision for scholarship and public engagement,” said Estrellita B. Brodsky, Board chair of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The Museum has a world-class collection and a mandate to represent the nation’s diverse cultures. The addition of José Roca to their curatorial team will offer an even broader understanding of modern and contemporary art from across the Americas.
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, I am grateful to the Hirshhorn Museum and to Estrellita Brodsky for this appointment.
José Roca
Roca will be responsible for engaging 20th- and 21st-century art from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America within the context of the Hirshhorn collection, which is grounded in visual art and culture from 1860 to the present. He will bolster the Museum’s Latin American and Latin American diasporic holdings by proposing future acquisitions and curating exhibitions.
The Hirshhorn has long collected international artists on the cutting edge of contemporary practice, starting with founder Joseph Hirshhorn’s storied practice of visiting galleries and at times acquiring entire shows by a single artist. His foundational gift and bequest included significant holdings of works by Fernando Botero, Lucio Fontana, Wilfredo Lam, Julio Le Parc, Marisol, Matta, Rufino Tamayo and Joaquín Torres-García, among others. Since its opening in 1974, the Museum has acquired work by artists such as Carlos Cruz-Diez, Juan Francisco Elso, Ana Mendieta, Ernesto Neto and Edgar Orlaineta, as well as more recent introductions of work by leading contemporary figures including Abraham Cruzvillegas, Guadalupe Maravilla and Liliana Porter. While the permanent collection features notable modern artists, the Museum’s mission is founded in the promotion of contemporary art and artists as well; Roca’s appointment allows the Hirshhorn to engage more deeply with regions producing some
of the most exciting work today and to share them with its audiences, as in the forthcoming exhibition OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, opening September 29th.
About
José Roca (b. Barranquilla, 1962) is a Colombian curator. He was artistic director of rivus, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, Australia, in 2022. From 2012 to 2022, he managed FLORA ars+natura, an independent space for contemporary art in Bogotá. He was the Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at Tate, London (2012–2015), and curator of the LARA collection, Singapore (2012–2020). He managed the arts program at the Banco de la República in Bogotá (1994–2008) and was co-curator of the Poly/graphic Triennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2004), the 27th Bienal Internacional de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil (2006), and the Encuentro Internacional de Arte de Medellín MDE07 (2007). He was the artistic director of Philagrafika 2010 in Philadelphia and the head curator of the 8 Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2011). He is the coauthor 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); and r?vus: A Glossary of Water (with Juan Francisco Salazar), published as a companion to the 23rd Biennale of Sydney. He is the coeditor of Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection (with [NAME] Publications). Roca served on the awards jury for the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and the Prince Claus Awards Committee (2012–2016). He was the Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at then Whitney Independent Study Program (2001–2002) and the Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2002–2003). He received the CIFO Curatorial Achievement Award in 2012 and the Montblanc de la Culture Prize in 2017 Roca lives in Bogotá.
Estrellita B. Brodsky, PhD, is a curator, collector and philanthropist and an advocate for artists and art from Latin America and its diaspora. Brodsky holds a doctorate in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and a master’s from Hunter College. Her curatorial expertise spans exhibitions and extensive writings, particularly focusing on post–World War II Latin American artists. She currently serves as chair of the Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and is a founding member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Latin American Art Initiative and the Tate Americas Foundation Latin American Art Committee. She has endowed curatorial positions in Latin American art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate, and the Museum of Modern Art. In 2015, she founded ANOTHER SPACE, a program and not-for-profit exhibition gallery dedicated to broadening international awareness and appreciation of art from Latin America and its diaspora.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the national museum of modern and contemporary art and a leading voice for 21st-century art and culture. Part of the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn is located prominently on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Its holdings encompass one of the most important collections of postwar American and European art in the world. The Hirshhorn presents diverse exhibitions and offers an array of public programs on the art of our time—free to all. The Hirshhorn Museum is open daily, 10 am–5:30 pm (except Dec. 25). hirshhorn.si.edu
