Photographs by

Mark B. Anstendig

Die Stachelschweine

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The whole program for the opening of Die Stachelschweine (The Porcupines) Cabaret's new theater in the Berlin "Europa Center" in 1966.

This assignment more than any other showed that I had "arrived" in the photographic/artistic world. The Stachelschweine was the premiere political/satirical cabaret of Europe and the whole world at that time. They were so important and such a deep tradition that Berlin gave them their own elegant new theater in the city's premiere business center at the apex of the Kurfurstendamm, near the preserved ruined church.

The opening of the program for this new theater was THE social/theatrical event of the year. The teacher of photography and photo-graphics at the Hochschule Fuer Bildende Kunst (State Art Conservatory) in Berlin, Heinz Hayek Halke, had been my mentor in photography, whose door was always open to me and gave me a firm technical background. Hayek-Halke was famous for photo graphics and always did the cover graphic (Titelgrafik) for the Stachelschweine programs.

That year the program was especially important and most photographers wanted to do it. I didn't even know about it, but Hayek-Halke insisted they look at my work and I received a call from them. After a visit to my studio, they gave me the job and that signaled that I had truly "arrived" in the photo world.

Here, intact and scanned as they appear, are all the pages from that program. This title graphic on the cover (first page) is by Hayek Halke. Credits are on the middle page (the 6th two-page group), which
also contained the title, etc.

The title of the show was "The Eleventh Commandment" (Das Elfte Gebot), so we did the photos in and around the ruined memorial church, with the new church built next to it. This assignment was a total joy to do.

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