Reuniendo Letras: A Find in Palermo: From Buenos Aires Asphalt to 20th-Century Galician Fantasy

Walking down a few streets in the Palermo neighborhood, I set off on a route that began at the intersection of Güemes and Fray Justo Santa María de Oro streets and ended at the corner of Güemes and Av. Scalabrini Ortiz.
Mid-walk, I passed an erotic art gallery/shop that was closed at the time. However, something in its window display forced me to stop and focus my eyes: an old photo/postcard they had on exhibit.
The image shows a couple smiling and posing on a boat titled "CORUÑA." The background depicts a fairground scene or a cityscape—an unmistakable hallmark of the settings used by street photographers (fotógrafos minuteros) in Spain during the first decades of the 20th century. This type of studio photography on a boat was very common in coastal areas like A Coruña, where the "Atlantic Hotel" photographer was particularly well-known for this scenic staging.

Did they actually travel by boat?
The short answer is no; the couple was not taking a real trip on that boat. We are looking at a classic street or fairground studio photograph, taken approximately between the 1920s and 1940s.
The behind-the-scenes of this shot reveals a great visual trick and a popular attraction of the era:

• The visual trick: The vessel named "CORUÑA" is, in reality, a fixed wooden or cardboard prop. The couple would stand behind the structure to simulate that they were sailing at high speed over the waves. The background—which included buildings, cars, and even airplanes or zeppelins depending on the staging—was a painted canvas.
• A popular attraction: This specific backdrop was permanently stationed for years in tourist and leisure areas (such as the Méndez Núñez gardens in A Coruña or in traveling fairs). People paid a few coins to take home this fantasy portrait printed in postcard format.

The Mystery: What is this postcard doing in an erotic art gallery?
Seeing this photograph in an erotic art gallery is no coincidence. It responds to a contemporary reinterpretation of collecting and body language, which we can break down into three key concepts:

1. The "Eroticism of the Era" and the Desire for Freedom
By the standards of early 20th-century Spain, the image projects a strong sense of complicity and audacity. The act of pretending to pilot a speedboat all by themselves—with the woman at the wheel in an active, laughing attitude, breaking strict traditional decorum—charges the scene with a hidden sensuality, playfulness, and mischievousness.

2. Artistic Appropriation (Found Footage)
Many modern artists buy orphaned postcards and anonymous vintage photographs to display them in galleries. By decontextualizing the image from its original purpose (a simple fairground souvenir) and placing it in an erotic setting, the curator invites the viewer to imagine the sexual tension, romance, or hidden intimacy of that anonymous couple.

3. Fetishism of the Forbidden
Encountering such an effusive and physical display of joy in an era of heavy social repression is usually read today, with the benefit of hindsight, from a perspective of liberation and nostalgic eroticism.
Sometimes, the best time-travel journeys are hidden inside the closed shop windows of Palermo.

Clothing Analysis: Dating the Image
By examining the stylistic elements of the couple, we can place the photograph with fair accuracy between the late 1920s and the mid-1930s (approximately between 1928 and 1935).

• The woman's hairstyle and style: She sports highly defined waves finger-waved close to the head, a clear evolution of the garçonne or Flapper style that dominated the 1920s. Unlike the sleek bob cuts from the beginning of that decade, by 1930 women's hair regained some softness with Marcel waves (finger waves) and volume at the sides. She wears a light-colored dress with a subtle neckline and structured short sleeves, very much in line with 1930s summer fashion.
• The man's attire: The cut of the dark suit, with wide yet structured lapels, a stiff-collared white shirt, and a flawlessly knotted classic tie, gives away the interwar aesthetic. His hair is short, slicked back with pomade, and rigidly styled—the absolute standard of male neatness at the time.
• Body language: A crucial detail for dating the photo is their complicity and physical closeness. In previous decades (1900-1910), portraits were severe, distant, and rigidly formal. Here, the man wraps his arm around the woman's waist, and she laughs openly at the camera with her hands firmly on the wheel. This gestural ease is characteristic of the modernity and search for optimism of the 1930s.

Other Common Visual Fantasies of Street Photographers
Traveling or street photographers, known in Spanish as "minuteros" (so called because they developed the photo in just a few minutes inside their own box cameras), were true craftsmen of illusion. To attract the public on boardwalks and fairs, they featured several iconic backdrops:
1. Impossible Journeys by Airplane or Zeppelin

• The illusion: Cut-out wooden structures that simulated the cockpit of a propeller plane or the gondola of an airship.
• The background: Canvases painted with clouds, giant moons, or bird's-eye views of cities.
• The hook: Commercial aviation was just being born and was an unattainable luxury. Taking a photo "flying" granted a status of audacity and technological modernity in the eyes of family and friends.

2. The Racing Car and Motorcycles

• The illusion: Silhouettes of early sports cars or motorcycles with sidecars that customers could climb onto.
• The background: A blurred road with lines simulating dizzying speed.
• The hook: It symbolized the speed, freedom, and progress of the new century. For working-class youths, it was their only chance to "drive" a luxury vehicle.

3. The Crescent Moon (The Paper Moon)

• The illusion: A large wooden crescent moon with a flat surface to sit on.
• The background: A dark blue or black backdrop dotted with hand-painted stars.
• The hook: This fantasy had a deeply romantic and nocturnal tone. It was the preferred setting for young couples, charged with an intimate and poetic atmosphere.

4. Artificial Beach Scenes

• The illusion: Fake papier-mâché rocks, umbrellas, and nautical accessories (such as lifebuoys featuring the names of famous beaches).
• The background: A calm sea with ships on the horizon.
• The hook: It allowed people who had never set foot on the coast to pretend they were enjoying a bourgeois, exclusive vacation by the sea.

The Link to the Gallery's Erotic Art
In this context, the speedboat "CORUÑA" works under the same premise: the prop operated as a space of visual impunity. In a society with severe moral codes, stepping onto the photographer's contraption allowed the couple to playfully break protocol.
She takes mechanical control (the wheel), he holds her audaciously, and both pretend to escape at full speed in a speedboat. It is precisely this role-play, the physical proximity permitted under the guise of "simulation," and the playfulness of their glances that contemporary eyes read and rescue today as a genuine, subtle form of vintage eroticism.

The Changing Role of Women
Analyzing the role of women in photography during the late 1920s and 1930s (especially in the context of the Second Republic in Spain or the European interwar period) reveals an era of profound transition.
Photography ceased to be a mere rigid family record and became a reflection of the "Modern Woman." The image captured on the speedboat "CORUÑA" perfectly condenses this visual and social revolution through several key axes:
1. Mechanical Control as a Symbol of Emancipation

• The woman at the wheel: In the postcard, it is the woman who firmly holds the helm, while the man stands beside her in a secondary or accompanying role.
• Breaking the passive role: Historically, women in 19th-century photography were portrayed as static objects: a "muse," a devoted mother, or a decorative figure in the home. By placing her at the helm of a speedboat (or a racing car in other fairground settings), the popular imagery of the 1930s positioned her as an active, independent subject capable of mastering speed and technology—elements that were previously strictly masculine.

2. Conquering Public Space and Leisure

• Outside the domestic environment: These fairground and seaside resort photographs show that women were occupying urban recreation spaces in their own right.
• Laughing at the camera: The woman's attitude in the photo—laughing openly, looking easily at the photographer—marks an absolute break from the 19th century. A submissive or modest gaze was no longer required; the "New Woman" of the 1930s claimed her right to visible enjoyment, play, and public lightheartedness.

3. The Flapper Aesthetic and Bodily Liberation

• Goodbye to the corset: The fashion of the era (short hair with finger waves, lighter dresses, exposed arms) accompanied a political and social shift. The female body was no longer constrained by rigid structures, allowing for much freer, athletic, and uninhibited body language.
• Physical complicity: In these types of recreational portraits, physical proximity between men and women became normalized. The spontaneous physical contact in the pose—with the man wrapping his arm around her waist—shows a loss of fear toward moral judgment, building a new form of romance based on camaraderie.

4. The Woman Behind and In Front of the Camera

• While female audiences adopted these new playful roles in front of the lens at fairs, women were also starting to pick up cameras as creative subjects. The 1930s was the decade of modern photography pioneers (like Dorothea Lange in the US or Mey Rahola in Spain), who began portraying female reality without the filters of the traditional patriarchal eye.

Because of all this, the image in the erotic art gallery is not just "charming": it represents the exact moment when women began to own their visual narrative, using photographic play to rehearse the freedom and desire that the society of the time was beginning to demand.

Critique
If we were to present this photograph along with the entire historical and erotic analysis to Nassim Nicholas Taleb (the famous essayist and author of The Black Swan and Antifragile), what would his reaction be? Would it be devastating, ironic, and highly critical of this way of analyzing the past?

With his philosophical and mathematical style, Taleb would dismantle these arguments using his key concepts:

1. The "Lindy Effect" and the Illusion of Contemporary Art
For Taleb, the Lindy Effect states that the future life expectancy of a non-perishable technology or idea (like art) is proportional to its current age. If something has survived 100 years, it is likely to survive another 100.

• His view on the gallery: Taleb would look upon the intellectualization of the erotic art gallery with deep disdain. He would say that reinterpreting a fairground postcard as "contemporary conceptual erotic art" is academic ridiculousness and a display of modern snobbery.
• His verdict: The postcard survives today not because of gender theories or modern art, but because it possesses a real, physical, and tangible human quality that time has filtered out. What is truly "antifragile" is the physical photograph and human romance, not the gallery curator's theories.

2. The "Narrative Fallacy" (Building stories where there are none)
Taleb is an enemy of our biological need to connect random facts to create an attractive linear story. The problem is not the narration itself, but where we apply it. In science and complex systems, it is a mortal danger when the narrative fallacy disguises itself as science, economics, or geopolitical analysis. Meanwhile, in literature, it is the legitimate space of myth and aesthetic truth; he would not see a problem with a fiction writer using narratives. On the contrary, he considers that literature and myths have their own validity. For Taleb, the narrative fallacy is our vulnerability to inventing cause-and-effect stories that retrospectively simplify reality.

• His view on our analysis: He would accuse us of falling headfirst into the narrative fallacy. By seeing the woman at the helm and 1930s clothes, we construct a grand narrative about the Second Republic, women's emancipation, and bodily liberation.
• His verdict: He would say reality is much simpler and more chaotic. That woman was probably not thinking about female emancipation or defying the patriarchy when she climbed onto the cardboard boat; she was simply having fun at the fair. By inventing a macro-historical meaning for a random micro-event, we are committing an epistemological error. The actual past was messy, not a sociology lesson.

3. Intellectual Yet Idiot (The IYI Concept)
Taleb coined the term Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) to describe individuals with academic degrees who theorize about the real world without having any "skin in the game."

• His view on the erotic analysis: Seeing hidden tension or a deconstruction of eroticism in a family-like photo would strike him as mental masturbation by IYIs.
• His verdict: He would argue that eroticism and human attraction are robust, ancient, heuristic biological instincts that do not need to be explained by an art gallery expert. The couple in the photo shows genuine joy because they are living humans, not because they are rehearsing "spaces of visual impunity" for the future.

4. The Antifragile Versus the Ephemeral
Taleb values that which benefits from disorder and time.

• His view of the photo: A small piece of photographic paper survived a civil war, a dictatorship, the passage of decades, and the digitalization of the world. It reached a gallery intact in 2026.
• His verdict: That makes it antifragile. It has passed the test of time (the most ruthless judgment there is). While most modern essays on erotic art will be forgotten next year, the smiling face of that anonymous couple continues to generate emotion nearly a century later due to its brutal honesty and lack of pretension.

In summary, Taleb would likely say: "Stop listening to the complex narratives of the historian and the gallery owner. Enjoy the photo for what it is: biological proof that humans of the past knew how to laugh, court, and have a good time without needing a manual of contemporary theory."

Philosophical Perspective on Vintage Erotic Photography

• Walter Benjamin (The "Aura"): The erotic value is not in nudity, but in the mystical and melancholic connection with a real moment from the past that stares back at us. Physical photography retains a unique "aura" that digital technology cannot replicate.
• Byung-Chul Han (The Mystery): The image is the antithesis of modern pornography (which exposes everything directly). Eroticism arises from imagination, distance, and subtle details that suggest rather than explicitly show.
• Jean Baudrillard (The Simulacrum): The photo (with its cardboard speedboat) is a precursor to social media, where the sign of the journey matters more than the actual trip. Eroticism lies in the conscious game of participating in a lie, a disguise, and a playful deception.

Digital Destruction of the "Antifragility" of Memories (Following Taleb's Logic)

• Amnesia by overproduction: The scarcity of the past forced people to select special moments, granting them value. Today, abundance and bursts of ephemeral photos kill the meaning of memory.
• Technical fragility: Unlike physical paper (which only requires light and eyes to be read), digital photos depend on software, hardware, clouds, and formats prone to obsolescence and disappearance.
• Loss of humanity: Physical photos age, wear down, and accumulate nostalgia through touch. The digital file (.jpg) is cold, incorruptible, and lacks a physical body, thereby losing its capacity to survive and inherit the warmth of real-world disorder.