For this post, I would like to discuss the Dada art and its connection to the Postmodernist literary movement that came later.  It seems to me that the pieces that we looked at very much fit with the literary movement that first began to develop in the 40’s and 50’s, and I believe that these pieces of art prefigure the movement itself.  The idea that first put me onto this was how the title of each painting existed within the painting itself. This struck me as being very odd, and it reminded me of the conscious effort of Postmodernist writers to create a meta-narrative that calls attention to the fact that the piece of writing is a fiction, rather than a “true story.”  The Postmodernists were concerned with breaking the fictional dream, and I believe the Dada artists are doing the same sort of thing.  They are drawing attention to the fact that the painting is a piece of creative work.  Rather than allowing you to get lost in the painting, you are instantly pulled back and reminded that it is a painting.  Another tenet of Postmodernism is the use of the absurd.  For instance, in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five the main character, Billy Pilgrim, believes that he is continuously being abducted by aliens, and these aliens place him in a zoo that they have built to house him.  These aliens bear a striking resemblance to the very dime-store sci-fi novels that the character is so enthralled with.  I think this absurdity fits very well with the paintings, as most feature the connection (by bold black lines) between electrical equipment/machines and things like a headless mannequin modeling a dress.  Another major element of the Postmodern in these paintings is the idea of intertextuality.  This concept is whenever you take things from one text and transfer them onto another, especially whenever that text is from a different medium.  For one thing, we have the use of text in the paintings which by itself is very surprising: the painting “PORTRAIT D'UNE JEUNE FILLE AMERICAINE DANS L' ÉTAT DE NUDITÉ” contains the words “FOR-EVER” and the painting “J'AI VU et c'est de toi qu'il s'agit DE ZAYAS! DE ZAYAS! JE SUIS VENU SUR LES RIVAGES DU PONT-EUXIN” contains a very long title, part of which is sprawled over the canvas.  Beyond this, the use of “de Zayas” is intertextual, because it is referencing the Spanish writer María de Zayas who wrote in mid-1600s.  Not only is it referencing an early feminist writer, but it is taking a literary reference and placing it into a completely different medium in a very bold way.  The words “De Zayas! De Zayas!” are placed above what appears to me to be sunlit ocean waves.  This same image feeds into my final connection between Postmodernism and Dada art, which is the use of fragmentation.  Postmodernism is known for having narratives that are broken up and fragmented, which is one of the major influences that it took from Modernism.  I believe that this element is very apparent in these paintings. A lot of them feature machinery/electronics which are only connected by the bold black lines, as I mentioned above; however, technology isn’t the only thing in the paintings.  We get mannequins, ocean waves, and words that are seemingly disconnected within the very paintings that connect them.