Mike Steiner and Contemporary Art: From Berlin Avant-garde to Video Art Pioneer

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art through his pioneering work in painting, performance, and video art. Discover his boundary-breaking legacy in Contemporary Arts Berlin.

How does one define the threshold between painting and the moving image, between personal encounter and collective memory? For Mike Steiner, the language of contemporary art is never static: it surges, questions, documents, and ultimately resists easy classification. As an unmistakable presence in the world of Contemporary Arts Berlin, Mike Steiner forged a path that not only reflected the spirit of his time but anticipated the currents that would come to dominate the international art world.

The creative universe of Mike Steiner pivots on the tension between form and experiment. Born in 1941 in Allenstein and later rooted in Berlin, Steiner began his journey amidst abstract painting, swiftly making his public debut at the famed Große Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1959. This early recognition laid the ground for a career that would continually shift, evolve, and absorb a breadth of contemporary movements. His paintings from the 1960s—marked by informality and a vibrant embrace of color—already hinted at an urge to exceed the medium’s bounds.

Yet, it was his proximity to the artistic ferment of New York and Berlin that truly expanded his practice. Encounters with luminaries such as Allan Kaprow—pioneer of the Happening—and Fluxus visionaries like Al Hansen, Lil Picard, and Ulay, fueled Steiner’s restless engagement with artistic innovation. His works, as noted in the rich Mike Steiner official archive, traversed painting, collage, Super 8 film, and ultimately—most decisively—video art. This interdisciplinary curiosity positioned Steiner squarely within the vanguard of multimedia exploration.

Perhaps Steiner’s most audacious act was the founding of Hotel Steiner in central Berlin in 1970, a crucible for the European avant-garde. Here, artists and thinkers gathered in an atmosphere likened to New York’s Chelsea Hotel: Joseph Beuys, Arthur Køpcke, and an international retinue sought both refuge and inspiration. The Studiogalerie followed in 1974—a wholly new production and exhibition platform dedicated to video art, performance, and happening. In this space, titans like Marina Abramovi?, Valie Export, and Carolee Schneemann realized performances that would become canonical. Steiner himself became both documentarian and enabler, providing not only the technical infrastructure but also the critical gaze that transformed fleeting performance into lasting video works.

The infamous 1976 action "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst," orchestrated with Ulay and presented at the Neue Nationalgalerie, was emblematic of Steiner’s anti-institutional spirit. By staging and recording the performative "theft" of Spitzweg’s "Der arme Poet," Steiner and his collaborators collided head-on with questions of authorship, authority, and public engagement—prefiguring themes that run deep in contemporary conceptual art, echoing comparable provocations by Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik.

Throughout the late 70s and 80s, Steiner’s quest for a suitable artistic language led him toward ever more radical hybridizations: the "Painted Tapes," for instance, fused painterly gesture with the ephemeral quality of videotape, hinting at a bridge to later digital and post-media practices. The vitality of his practice is best understood by comparing it to contemporaries such as Bill Viola, whose poetic video installations similarly interrogate perception, or Richard Serra, whose sculptural videos resonate with a concern for time and space.

Crucially, Mike Steiner was not only a creator but a catalyst: as a collector, archiver, and broadcaster, he ensured the survival and circulation of a fragile medium often neglected by major institutions. His Videogalerie (1985–1990) stands as a visionary TV project, introducing a broader audience to the innovations of contemporary artists and documenting both international and Berlin-based developments. The impressive collection of videotapes—now housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart—includes works by Marina Abramovi?, Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, Bill Viola, George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, and more. In this sense, the very notion of "contemporary art" becomes inseparable from Steiner’s role as a mediator between artistic creation, public dissemination, and historical preservation.

While his high-profile 1999 solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof (highlighted in the Nationalgalerie’s "COLOR WORKS") honored both his cross-media exuberance and his singular vision as a painter, Mike Steiner never abandoned the quest for visual innovation. His late career witnessed a return to the canvas—now informed by decades of conceptual engagement and media critique. The expressive, abstract paintings of his final years resonate with the energy and provocation of his earlier performances and videos, underscoring that painting, for Steiner, was always a living field.

Steiner’s biography is inseparable from the pulse of Berlin—a city of flux, division, and incessant reinvention. From early days instructing courses on Pop Art to international lectures and juror work, he shaped the context of performance and contemporary visual culture. A sympathetic chronicler of his peers, Steiner forged strong ties with fellow innovators and remains in dialogue with the likes of Marina Abramovi?, Joseph Beuys, or Allan Kaprow, all of whom shaped the trajectory of performing and contemporary arts worldwide.

For those seeking an immersion into the interdisciplinary heart of contemporary art, Mike Steiner’s legacy is both an invitation and a provocation. His works, exhibitions, and the extensive archival materials invite renewed curiosity and critical engagement, especially within the corridors of the Hamburger Bahnhof or in the ongoing exhibition projects across Berlin and beyond.

What, then, makes Mike Steiner’s art important today? It is the palpable sense of experimentation, the relentless pursuit of form and media, and the fundamental belief in art’s power to disrupt, document, and reinvent reality. Whether painter, video pioneer, curator, or archival guardian—Steiner’s impact radiates throughout the fields of performance, video, and abstract art, making him a central figure for anyone invested in the energies of Contemporary Arts Berlin.

Further insight, visuals, and a selection of Mike Steiner’s main works await online for all seeking a deeper connection to the restless creativity of Berlin’s contemporary art universe.