Mike Steiner: Shaping Contemporary Art Between Color, Video, and Avant-Garde Performance

How can contemporary art continually break its own boundaries and reinvent itself? Mike Steiner provides a compelling answer. From his earliest days as a painter in postwar Berlin, Mike Steiner’s artistic journey became synonymous with a fierce drive for innovation and an unwavering belief in the interplay of media, time, and space. Whether through vibrant abstract paintings, groundbreaking video art, or provocative performance installations, Steiner’s work always set out to question established norms and expand the possibilities of artistic expression.

Experience Contemporary Artworks by Mike Steiner online – discover originals and video art here

At the heart of Steiner’s artistry is a restless curiosity, a relentless quest for the new—whether in painting, as seen in the powerful color fields and gestural abstraction of his later career, or in his contributions as a pioneer of video art. Entering the Berlin art scene at just 17, Steiner’s first public appearance at the 1959 Große Berliner Kunstausstellung signaled his early commitment to radical approaches. Already by the early 1970s, he had moved beyond the canvas, transforming the medium itself by blending images, sound, and performance in what would become a hallmark of Contemporary Arts Berlin.

Yet what sets Mike Steiner apart from other artists of his generation—such as Joseph Beuys or Nam June Paik—is the breadth and hybridity of his creative output. The iconic Hamburger Bahnhof housed his most significant solo exhibition in 1999, “COLOR WORKS,” a show that illuminated not merely his artistry but the interwoven threads of avant-garde painting and new media. Here, visitors confronted vivid abstract paintings, “Painted Tapes” (Steiner’s unique fusion of video and painting), and archival performances that seemed to pulse with the experimental ethos of the Fluxus movement.

It was Steiner’s willingness to make space for other creatives that shaped a new era. Establishing the legendary Hotel Steiner in West Berlin in 1970, he offered a haven for artists and thinkers—a German echo of New York’s Chelsea Hotel. The hotel soon became a meeting point for performance icons like Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovi?. Building on these encounters, Steiner launched his Studiogalerie in 1974: an experimental venue dedicated to video art, happenings, and actionism at a time when Berlin’s artistic infrastructure for such genres was virtually non-existent. This gallery wasn’t just a space but a living laboratory for international exchange, hosting luminaries such as Valie Export, Marina Abramovi? (whose pivotal “Freeing the Body” was both performed and captured by Steiner), and Allan Kaprow, the father of the Happening.

Fascinating is Steiner’s simultaneous role as creator, producer, and archiver. His own video works—often in collaboration with Fluxus and performance legends—documented the volatile energy of performance art while projecting it permanently into artistic discourse. “Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst” (1976), a notorious collaboration with Ulay, blurred lines between law, performance, and public space: a live action in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie culminating in the temporary ‘theft’ of Carl Spitzweg’s masterpiece. With such works, Steiner stood shoulder to shoulder with contemporaries like Richard Serra and Bill Viola, yet his voice remained unusually multifaceted—always both artist and enabler, both innovator and chronicler.

His role in building one of the most significant collections of video art in Germany cannot be overstated. From acquiring Reiner Ruthenbeck’s earliest video tapes to assembling recordings by Nam June Paik, Gary Hill, Jochen Gerz, and Valie Export, Steiner’s archive (now held in the Hamburger Bahnhof—Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart) became an irreplaceable resource for scholars and artists alike. The “Live to Tape” exhibition (2011/12 at Hamburger Bahnhof) later spotlighted this legacy, making Steiner’s intertwined roles as artist, collector, and mediator palpable.

Yet neither his curiosity nor his productivity were bound to a single medium. After an intense period of experimental video and performance work, the 2000s saw Steiner return to painting with renewed abstraction—vivid color fields, restrained geometry, and dynamic brushwork. Here, one feels echoes of contemporary titans like Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko, but always filtered through a uniquely Berlin sensibility: playful yet precise, experimental yet deeply material. Later works even reach into the textile arts, proof that Steiner’s creative restlessness endured.

Behind this eclecticism lies a coherent philosophy. Mike Steiner believed in artistic permeability, in the dissolution of genres for the sake of creative truth. His studio and galleries became refuges for experimentation, places where art happened live—in front of and with audiences—and where the performative and the painterly fused. Not by chance did his influence stretch across the international art network, from Berlin and Paris to New York and beyond. The impact of his travels—America in the 1960s (where he was introduced to the circles around Allan Kaprow, Lil Picard, and Robert Motherwell), and his later years returning to lecture and curate—expanded his vision and network. Steiner’s dedication extended to art education, fostering discourse at Berlin’s Hochschule für bildende Künste and organizing workshops on Pop Art and visual composition. As an initiator, he curated numerous programs, including the televised “Videogalerie” (1985–1990), where he produced and commented on over 120 segments about video art—helping to popularize the genre across Germany, a precise contribution comparable to Gerry Schum and his Fernsehgalerie.

Reflecting on Mike Steiner’s work now, one recognizes not only a record of contemporary art’s most turbulent decades, but also a prophetic engagement with the intersections of media, identity, and society. His art confronts the fleeting and the permanent, the physical act and the digital trace, always bound by a critical and playful spirit. Why engage with Mike Steiner’s art today? Because in a world increasingly fragmented by digital media and shifting boundaries, Steiner’s cross-media oeuvre models an openness and courage that contemporary artists aspire to. For anyone drawn to the untamed frontiers of contemporary art, a deep dive into his paintings, tapes, and performance documents promises an eye-opening journey.

For further exploration, including detailed biographies, exhibition chronologies, and extensive visual material, the official site offers a comprehensive, in-depth resource: Explore Mike Steiner’s official website for more on contemporary art, exhibitions, and archives

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