Lukas Strebel: Antoglyph

During the 1970’s Lukas Strebel travelled to Spain to meet and photograph Salvador Dali. He took with him ‘Antoglyph’, the kitchen table which appears regularly in his images. "Forty years ago, I went travelling with a table. It was an incredible, animal-like object and I carried it around, taking its photograph in different landscapes," says the artist. Having been initially refused entrance Lukas gave Dali’s maid a copy of the photograph ‘meus volatus magicus supra Antoglyphum’ and asked her to appeal once more. On the strength of this image he was granted entrance. Cruelly, the day of the appointed shoot Lukas was called back to Switzerland for national service. About the above photograph: "I set up my camera on a tripod, took the table out into the water and climbed on. Then I jumped up while my girlfriend pressed the button. We had just one roll of film: in those days, you couldn't check you had got the shot, so I only found out when I returned to my darkroom two weeks later." An exhibition of Strebel's work  is on view at the Print Space in London until January 3, 74 Kingsland Road.