the reasons why i decided to become an art critic and exhibition curator and why i wouldn’t do the same thing today portrait by JONAS UNGER text by ÉRIC TONCY translated by PETER BEHRMAN DE SINÉTY I decided to take an interest in contemporary art and become an art critic and exhibition curator on Feb. 7, 1981, after having seen Michel Journiac’s performance Corps Interdit [Forbidden Body] at the Maison de la Culture in Nevers — I was 16 years old. In hindsight, I think I was struck above all by the courage it took to create such a work there in Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s France, the courage it certainly took to stage this production, and the courage it probably took to be an artist anywhere in the world, at that moment. I told myself it took a certain courage to decide to commit to a discipline that hardly anyone…