Mike Steiner and Contemporary Art: Breaking Boundaries with Video, Abstraction, and Avant-Garde Berlin

Mike Steiner stands as a visionary in contemporary art, redefining the boundaries between painting, video, and performance. Discover how his work reshaped the Berlin art scene and inspired generations.

Contemporary art thrives on moments when conventions are shattered and new forms come to life. In this realm, few artists have captured the multifaceted spirit of change as unwaveringly as Mike Steiner. Confronted with the shifting landscapes of postwar Berlin, Steiner developed a body of work that challenges and remakes the very definition of artistic media and contemporary expression. What happens when painting meets moving image, or when a hotel becomes epicenter for international avant-garde? In the life and oeuvre of Mike Steiner, these questions become urgent and beguiling—and the answers are as unexpected as they are influential.

From his earliest forays as a painter, Mike Steiner approached art with a sense of radical curiosity. Born in East Prussia in 1941 and coming of age in the charged atmosphere of West Berlin, he embraced artistic experimentation from the outset. Steiner’s first visible mark was made in painting—already at just 17, he exhibited his "Stillleben mit Krug" at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung. Yet even as a young artist, Steiner’s gaze was restless, ever searching for new forms.

By 1961, Steiner entered the State Academy of Fine Arts Berlin and quickly rose to become a definitive figure among a new generation of artists. This period brought him close to fellow pioneers such as Georg Baselitz and Karl Horst Hödicke, sharpening his abstract approach and providing a springboard for his future as both a creator and a facilitator of cultural innovation.

The late 1960s and early 1970s proved to be transformative. Steiner's travels to New York placed him at the heart of the flourishing Fluxus and Pop Art movements. Encounters with leading figures including Allan Kaprow, Robert Motherwell, and Lil Picard would imbue his work with a spirit of global dialogue—a dynamic exchange evident throughout his career. Like counterparts Nam June Paik or Marina Abramovi?, whose own careers married media innovation with performance, Steiner dissolved the boundaries separating genres and traditions in ways that would come to define Contemporary Arts Berlin.

Returning to Berlin, Steiner founded the Hotel Steiner in 1970, an establishment that quickly earned the reputation as Berlin’s answer to the legendary Chelsea Hotel. Here, artists such as Joseph Beuys, Arthur Köpcke, and Valie Export found not just shelter, but a hotbed for creative ferment and debate. This setting prefigured what would soon become the Studiogalerie, a pioneering node for video art, performance, and the explosive energy of the 1970s avant-garde.

It was in this Studiogalerie—opened in 1974—that Steiner realized some of his most influential contributions to contemporary art. At a time when video was scarcely recognized as an art medium, he provided artists with equipment, space, and an audience. The gallery became a vital platform for the likes of Ben Vautier, Ulay, Jochen Gerz, and Carolee Schneemann—the latter’s iconic performances, like "Up to and including her Limits," are indelibly connected to Steiner's vision. In the hands of Mike Steiner, the camera was not merely a recording apparatus, but a bridge between ephemerality and artistic permanence.

Among the most widely discussed actions orchestrated by Steiner was the legendary performance "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst" (1976), created in collaboration with Ulay. This intervention, involving the temporary removal of Spitzweg’s "Der arme Poet" from the Neue Nationalgalerie, was as much a spectacle as it was a critique on institutional authority, media, and the role of the artist. Steiner’s documentation gave the action lasting resonance, inspiring a lineage of performative critique seen later in works by artists such as Tino Sehgal or Matthew Barney.

Mike Steiner's archive is equally noteworthy. Building a significant video collection from as early as 1974, he assembled works by such luminaries as Marina Abramovi?, Bill Viola, Richard Serra, and Nam June Paik. Most of these tapes now reside as the Mike Steiner Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, further solidifying his impact on the institutional memory and ongoing debates in contemporary art practice.

Through the 1980s, Steiner expanded the syntax of his artistry. Not content with static media, he explored Super-8 film, photography, copy art, and groundbreaking "Painted Tapes"—works that combine the fleeting nature of video with the lush materiality of abstract painting. Steiner’s creative journey thus reflects a restless search for the right medium, echoing artists like Bruce Nauman or Jenny Holzer, whose works likewise oscillate between form and experiment.

His foray into television with the format "Videogalerie" (1985–1990) brought the conversation about video art directly to a wider German audience, demystifying the genre and highlighting its fertile ground for both critical discourse and visual poetry. Over 120 episodes were produced, encompassing artist interviews, exhibition reviews, and live performances—unprecedented at the time and still a landmark in the history of art broadcasting.

Even after the closure of the Studiogalerie, Steiner’s role as educator, juror, and mentor continued, influencing a new generation of artists and scholars. Major exhibitions—particularly the landmark 1999 retrospective "COLOR WORKS" at the Hamburger Bahnhof—paid tribute to his multidisciplinary ingenuity and the breadth of his artistic archive. The show foregrounded his capacity to move seamlessly between abstract paintings, video installations, and collaborative projects, positioning him alongside other titans of postwar art like Gerhard Richter, Bruce Nauman, and Nam June Paik.

In the 2000s, Steiner’s focus turned back to abstraction, producing paintings and textile works that still pulse with the energy and curiosity of his experimental years. Despite suffering a stroke in 2006, he remained dedicated to his practice, working quietly in his Berlin studio until his passing in 2012.

The legacy of Mike Steiner is felt not only in the works he created but in the institutions and networks he helped to build. His relentless commitment to interdisciplinarity and experimentation continues to inspire artists, curators, and viewers. Contemporary art in Berlin and beyond would be unthinkable without his pioneering efforts—whether as painter, video artist, or catalyst for artistic communities.

A deeper exploration of his works, collections, and archival projects is accessible on his official site and through the Mike Steiner website: Exclusive insights and high-resolution images here. For enthusiasts of contemporary art, his oeuvre remains an invitation: to engage, to question, and to be transformed.