Mike Steiner – Redefining Contemporary Art: From Abstract Painting to Video Avantgarde

What happens when the boundaries between painting, performance, and moving images become fluid? Mike Steiner, a name synonymous with contemporary art’s most daring experiments, staged precisely this question—over decades—across Berlin’s creative landscape and beyond. His career, rooted in post-war Germany and blossoming through the international avant-garde, consistently explored the limits of artistic media. Mike Steiner’s legacy is a shimmering synthesis of abstract paintings, pulsating video installations, and a bold vision that transformed the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin’s paramount Contemporary Arts institution, into a showcase of relentless innovation.

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Steiner began as a painter—first attracting attention at just 17 in Berlin’s Große Berliner Kunstausstellung—yet his restless intellect soon drew him far beyond traditional canvas. Immersed in West Berlin’s Bohemian circles and the crucible of Kreuzberger Forum, Steiner’s flair for “Bildnerisches Gestalten” (‘artistic creation’) hinted at an artistic path characterized by relentless experimentation. His studies at West-Berlin’s State Academy of Fine Arts, in the classes of Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn, laid a classical foundation. But the lure of the new—epitomized by a Ford Foundation grant and immersion in the New York art world—proved irresistible, shaping his vision with the energy of Fluxus, Pop Art, and pioneering conceptualists like Allan Kaprow and Robert Motherwell.

It was in New York that Steiner rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Al Hansen and the legendary performance artist Ulay, drinking in influences that would fuse painting with action, time, and the unpredictable presence of live performance. By the early 1970s, Steiner’s journey from painter to boundary-pushing video artist accelerated. His Hotel Steiner, nestled near Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, swiftly achieved cult status—evoking the mythic aura of the Chelsea Hotel, sanctuary to Joseph Beuys and collaborative crucible for artists like Arthur Køpcke. The hotel’s salons pulsed with creative debate and late-night artistic fervor, a “home far away from home,” as chronicled by scene chronicler Lil Picard.

Yet Steiner was never content to observe; he shaped environments. The foundation of the Studiogalerie in 1974 marked a key turning point, positioning him as a keystone in Berlin’s contemporary arts. Drawing inspiration from Florence’s trailblazing Art/Tapes/22, Steiner equipped the Studiogalerie with state-of-the-art video tools—a revolutionary offer at the time. The space became a launchpad not only for his own first video works (often in collaboration with Fluxus friends like Al Hansen) but also a stage for the big guns of the international avant-garde: Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, Carolee Schneemann, and Wiener Aktionismus emblem Valie Export. Steiner’s approach mirrored the vision of Wulf Herzogenrath in Cologne, yet gave Berlin its own vital pulse in the video revolution sweeping Europe.

One cannot discuss Mike Steiner’s significance without spotlighting his legendary 1999 solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Titled "Color Works", it was more than a homage—it was an affirmation of Steiner’s multidisciplinary genius. The exhibition distilled his artistic trajectory: early informal and abstract paintings shimmering with gestural freedom; bold experimentations in minimalism and Hard Edge; his painted filmstrips or "Painted Tapes," which fused the materiality of paint with the time axis of video. These works do not sit quietly—they throb with presence. Much like contemporaries Nam June Paik or Bill Viola, but with a distinctly German edge, Steiner’s compositions interrogate time, space, and perception itself.

Yet, while Paik is celebrated as the "father of video art" and Viola for immersive media environments, Steiner’s unique contribution lies in his embrace of the artist-archivist role. Not content to merely create, Steiner amassed one of Germany’s most significant collections of video art—tapes by Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, Richard Serra, Gary Hill, and many others—now preserved in the Hamburger Bahnhof. These archives, while still awaiting full digitization, offer a vital window into the emergence of video as a major art form in Germany.

Fascinating, too, is Steiner’s ability to interface with the world of broadcast media. With his television format "Videogalerie" (1985–1990), Steiner took the conversation into Berlin's homes, producing and presenting over 120 programs that documented, commented, and democratized contemporary video art. Like Gerry Schum’s legendary Fernsehgalerie, Steiner’s broadcast initiative broke new ground—bringing artists such as Joseph Beuys, Valie Export, and Jochen Gerz not only into galleries but into the living rooms of the republic.

The sheer versatility of Mike Steiner’s work demands attention. Whether capturing the ephemeral magic of performance art, experimenting with forms ranging from Super-8 film to photocopy art, or returning in his later years to pure abstraction—each project revealed a restless search for dialogue between media. His "Painted Tapes" stand as emblematic testaments to this curiosity; shimmering fields of color layered directly onto videotape, translating painterly gesture into sequences of light and duration. In the 1980s, new photographic series and fabric works further demonstrated his refusal to settle. From city streets to music tours—such as his videographic immersion with Tangerine Dream in Australia—Steiner’s art is ever in motion.

Mike Steiner’s biography, as documented on his official artist website, is inextricably tied to the evolution of Contemporary Arts Berlin. Crucial milestones—his early shows with Georg Baselitz and Karl Horst Hödicke in Geneva, Milan, and Paris; his central role organizing international video programs at ART Basel; and memberships in juries for the prestigious DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm—all signal his influence on the European art world.

His works remain open-ended, never doctrinaire—inviting the viewer not to passively consume, but to participate. There is tension, humor, and a certain magnetism in Steiner’s installations, performances, and paintings—a restless questioning inherited from Fluxus but anchored in the painter’s eye for color, texture, and rhythm. The “Irritation” performance with Ulay, for example, blurs the line between protest and art object, public scandal and private reflection. Even his late-career commitment to abstract painting and fabric-based composition, crafted after a debilitating stroke in 2006, speaks to a tenacious artistic will.

In sum, Mike Steiner’s significance for contemporary art extends well beyond the borders of Berlin. He is a rare case: artist, curator, archivist, and pioneer, whose work dwells in conversation with names like Allan Kaprow, Valie Export, and Nam June Paik—while remaining distinctively his own. In an era dominated by fleeting digital images, Steiner’s explorations of media hybridity, community, and creative tension feel timelier than ever. Those eager for deeper engagement are urged: delve into his official website for further insights, rare texts, and archival treasures; let his oeuvre open new perspectives on what contemporary art can be.