Mike Steiner: A Visionary of Contemporary Art and Pioneer of Video Innovation

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art with his boundary-pushing visions. As a pioneer of video art and a key figure in Berlin's scene, his legacy bridges painting and new media.

Few figures in contemporary art embody the restless curiosity and bold experimental spirit of Mike Steiner. His name is synonymous with the avant-garde in Berlin—yet what precisely made his artistic practice so seismically influential? Is it the vivid tension between abstraction and documentation, or the way he treated time, space, and technology as malleable substances within his art?

Mike Steiner’s artistic journey, meticulously documented and interpreted on his official website, reveals a lifetime shaped by—and shaping—the pulse of Contemporary Arts Berlin. Born in 1941 in Allenstein and later an integral part of West Berlin’s creative ferment, Steiner’s early fascination with both film and painting paved the way for an unconventional career. He debuted publicly at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung before his 18th birthday, signaling an early commitment to challenging artistic norms.

What’s perhaps most remarkable is his refusal to be tethered to a single medium. Steiner’s progression from abstract painting into the emergent realm of video art did not represent a break with tradition, but rather a radical expansion. The tension and transition between static image and moving picture—between paint and tape—became his signature terrain.

His legendary Hotel Steiner and subsequent Studiogalerie in Berlin were not simply venues but nerve centers of the city’s international Avantgarde, drawing artists like Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovi?, and Allan Kaprow. In these spaces, Steiner catalyzed a vibrant confluence of performance, Fluxus, and abstract experiment. One senses almost a mythic aura: late-night conversations morphing into spontaneous actions, the boundaries between art and life diffusing in the Berlin night.

The 1970s marked a decisive evolution: influenced by figures such as Lil Picard in New York and Al Hansen, Steiner embraced the flux of performance and video as equal to painting. His own "legitimation crisis concerning painting" (as his biography recounts) led him to video art—the medium that would define much of his subsequent impact on contemporary art. Here, works like the infamous documentation of Ulay’s 1976 action "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst" (capturing the audacious, art-critical appropriation of a Spitzweg painting), exemplified Steiner’s method: not just as observer, but as active producer and accomplice.

These video actions highlighted both the ephemeral beauty of performance and the necessity of capturing it—a dual sensibility also evidenced by his production of the ambitious television format "Videogalerie" (1985–1990). Over 120 broadcasts brought video art and interviews with international artists into living rooms across Germany. This outreach effort was decades ahead of its time, akin to Gerry Schum’s seminal Fernsehgalerie, but with a Berlin twist: gritty, inventive, irreverent.

Yet for all his high-profile curating and organizing, Steiner never ceased making. His art continued to metamorphose—through painted tapes that fused video with gestural abstraction; through minimalist photography and later, large-format abstract paintings. Particularly fascinating are his "Painted Tapes," wherein video is not simply recorded, but translated through color, rhythm, and painterly intervention.

Steiner’s later years saw a return to painting, but always with the memory of media experimentation hovering in the background. Notably, starting in 2000, he delved into abstract works on canvas and fabric, their vibrancy echoing the structured spontaneity of his earlier video works. Here, too, his handling of color aligns him with contemporaries such as Gerhard Richter (for painterly experimentation) and Nam June Paik (for cross-media innovation). While Richter expressed the mute potential of abstraction and Paik merged technology with artistic intuition, Mike Steiner’s distinct contribution was his seamless oscillation—never choosing between, but always combining.

The importance of Steiner’s archival and collecting activities cannot be overstated. His personal video art collection, acquired from the 1970s onwards, featured pivotal works by global icons including Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, Bill Viola, and Allan Kaprow. By 1999, this collection found a fitting home in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, solidifying Berlin’s role as a nerve center for contemporary and time-based arts.

The exhibition "COLOR WORKS 1995–1998" (Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, 1999) formed a zenith—both a celebration of Steiner’s multifaceted output and an affirmation of his enduring relevance. The show underscored the longevity and impact of his medienübergreifendes Denken—working across genres, connecting performance, video, painting, and installation.

Mike Steiner’s biography and artistic legacy are deeply woven into the fabric of Berlin’s postwar and contemporary art history. Encounters and collaborations with luminaries like Joseph Beuys, Allan Kaprow, and Marina Abramovi? not only informed his own development but also cast Steiner as a connector, catalyst, and documentarist of his generation’s creative energy.

What sets Steiner apart from his contemporaries is his restless engagement with the possibilities of art—not only what art can show, but how it can act, intervene, question, and make present. Much like Bruce Nauman or Bill Viola, he framed each medium as both language and experiment: painting as action, video as canvas. The distinction between performing arts and visual installation blurred into a unified field—a field that Steiner ceaselessly plowed, reimagined, and documented.

Today, to encounter Mike Steiner’s work—be it in the Hamburger Bahnhof, within the annals of Berlin’s art institutions, or through his digitized tapes and abstract canvases—is to experience the ongoing evolution of contemporary art. His works still pulse with the urgency of their making, entirely present, always open to interpretation. As digitalization advances, one hopes more of his archive will reach future generations, continuing to inspire and unsettle.

For anyone fascinated by the origins and futures of contemporary art, a closer look at Mike Steiner is essential. His oeuvre bridges modes, generations, and disciplines, constantly reminding us that artistic innovation is inseparable from artistic community. For in the end, Steiner’s greatest creation may well have been the spaces he made—for exchange, for experimentation, for the unfettered performance of art itself.

A deep dive into Mike Steiner’s archive, works, and exhibitions is best begun at his official website—a testament to his importance in both Berlin and the wider world of contemporary art.