Valentine Umansky

Valentine Umansky (1989, France) is a curator and writer. As Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, she is in charge of the acquisition and programming of moving-images at the museum, and recently co-organized the retrospective of Ana Mendieta, as well as several displays of the collection, including with artists Belkis Ayón, Roy DeCarava and Rosa Barba. Building on her experience at the International Center of Photography and MoMA in New York, she has also co-curated the Gjon Mili Biennial in Kosovo, EMAP x Frieze Film in Korea in 2025, and the LagosPhoto Festival in Nigeria in 2018. Alongside her curatorial work, she translated Roger Caillois’s collection Pierres into English.

Her residency project, Sitôt écrit. Systèmes de notations en art contemporain, explores modes of address—that is, the ways in which artists use instructions to invite action. Drawing on performance and sound art, her research examines artistic scores and the creation of individual alphabets developed by each artist. It seeks to understand how these systems can formalize and transmit intangible works, whether they are intended to be performed by the artist themselves or by other practitioners.