Over the past couple of decades, French art seems to have missed the boat. British art stole the show in the ’90s; the Germans ruled the ’80s. All else is ancient history, right? Mais non! “Premises” casts four decades of French work through the lens of Paris’ flourishing postwar avant-garde. The show promises also to explore the relation of visual work to architecture and design, intellectual theory, soixante-huitard politics, and New Wave cinema. Of course, one only hopes that, amid all these cultural achievements, the visual art holds its own.

— Jan Avgikos