Mike Steiner – A Visionary of Contemporary Art: From Abstract Paintings to Performing Arts

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art with a pioneering spirit, spanning from abstract painting to groundbreaking videokunst and performance. His legacy continues to inspire the avant-garde in Berlin and beyond.

To enter the world of Mike Steiner is to be drawn into a shimmering field of artistic experiment and border-breaking innovation. What happens when the language of painting collides with the pulse of video and the immediacy of performance? Mike Steiner, a revered figure in contemporary art, posed—and answered—these questions throughout a restless career that still sends ripples through the international art scene.

From his early abstract paintings presented as a precocious teenager at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung (1959), Mike Steiner developed a career marked by transformation and constant searching. His trajectory is firmly rooted in the heart of Contemporary Arts Berlin—his adopted city, which provided fertile ground for Steiners’ legendary creative hubs, like the Hotel Steiner and the Studiogalerie.

These artist-run spaces became international magnets, far more than mere accommodation or venues. Think of the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, but with a Berlin accent—alive with fluxus artists, performance radicals, and an intoxicating sense of possibility. It was here that Mike Steiner, in direct dialogue with luminaries like Joseph Beuys, Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, and Allen Kaprow, steered Berlin’s scene toward ever more daring new forms.

Steiner’s conversion to video and performance art did not signal a break with painting, but rather an expansion of his artistic vocabulary. His work from the 1970s and 1980s thrums with the restless energy of multimedia experimentation. As both creator and chronicler, Steiner recorded ephemeral actions—transforming performances and happenings into lasting video documents. His camera not only captured, but also participated in historical moments such as Ulay's legendary action, "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst," where art, protest, and the subversive spirit of Berlin merged in a singular spectacle.

The Studiogalerie, founded on the model of Florence’s Studio Art/Tapes/22, became one of Berlin’s central sites for video art and performing arts. Avant-garde artists like Valie Export, Carolee Schneemann, and Jochen Gerz crossed its threshold, finding in Mike Steiner a champion willing to provide not just space, but vital access to expensive equipment and a nurturing context for bold experimentation. Like Nam June Paik or Bill Viola, whom Steiner also championed and collected, he understood the radical promise of moving images and interdisciplinary creation in contemporary art.

Steiner’s commitment to the archive—the act of collecting, documenting, and curating—also marks a distinct legacy. The Berlin Video and the Mike Steiner Collection hold rare tapes of performances and works by an international roster of artists. This treasure trove, now housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, is an unparalleled resource for scholars, artists, and fans of performance and video art alike. The prominent 1999 exhibition "Mike Steiner – Color Works" in the Hamburger Bahnhof further cemented his role as a pioneer and cross-genre artist.

Yet Steiner never truly abandoned painting. In later years, especially after 2000, he returned with new intensity to abstract paintings and also explored innovative textile works—proof of his insatiable drive to push beyond established boundaries. His oeuvre is marked throughout by a willingness to test new media, to bring color, surface, and even electronic images together in unexpected harmony. The "Painted Tapes" series, merging video and painting in one medium, encapsulates this dynamic approach to art.

Biographically, Mike Steiner was shaped by early experience and cosmopolitan encounters. Born in Allenstein in 1941, surviving the war in East Prussia, Steiner grew up in postwar Berlin—a divided, yet culturally electric city. A formative sojourn in 1960s New York allowed him to connect with the likes of Robert Motherwell, Lil Picard, and the Pop and fluxus scenes, deepening his understanding of international avant-garde currents. Returning to Germany, he earned his Master’s degree at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin and quickly became a fixture of group exhibitions across Europa’s cultural capitals, exhibiting alongside Georg Baselitz and Karl Horst Hödicke.

Throughout the following decades, Steiner’s restless intellect and experimental zest drove him through a kaleidoscope of genres and techniques: Super-8 film, copy art, photographic installations, and minimal and hard-edge painting. His "Test Pattern as Readymade" series and international exhibitions—from Cairo’s Echnaton-Galerie to San Francisco—show not only the diversity of his interests but also his ability to adapt to and shape the rapidly evolving landscape of contemporary art.

Steiner’s artistic philosophy was never about pure aestheticism—rather, it was about intervention, conversation, and the attempt to make art a living, participatory experience. His activities as juror, speaker, and teacher fed back into his practice, underscoring his belief in art’s social dimension and its transformative power. Despite suffering a stroke in 2006, Steiner continued to work in his Berlin studio, delving into abstraction and new materials until his death in 2012.

Mike Steiner’s influence continues to reverberate across the contemporary arts. Like his American contemporaries Bruce Nauman or Vito Acconci, Steiner is recognized for blurring the lines between media, for fostering collaboration, and for creating enduring forums for avant-garde art. It is fitting that his legacy remains accessible not just as memory, but in living color: paintings, videos, installations—all testament to a mind ever reaching for the new.

If you are eager to delve deeper into the unique cosmos of Mike Steiner, an exploration of his official website mike-steiner.de is an essential next step. There you will find comprehensive insights, exhibition archives, and visual inspirations that bring the visionary's journey to life once more.