Mike Steiner: Between Canvas and Camera – Contemporary Art as Avant-Garde Experience

Mike Steiner’s contemporary art spans abstract painting, groundbreaking video, and iconic installations—his unique vision shaped Berlin’s contemporary arts scene far beyond the Hamburger Bahnhof.

With Mike Steiner, contemporary art reveals itself in a multifaceted interplay of colour, image, and performance—a universe where painting, video, and installation meet to challenge boundaries and spark new dialogues. What distinguishes Steiner’s work is his remarkable ability to fuse the analytical precision of abstract paintings with the electric immediacy of video and performance. How does one define the point at which painting transitions into moving image, or gesture into lasting cultural memory?

Mike Steiner’s journey through the arts reads like an atlas of contemporary practice in postwar Berlin. Emerging in the late 1950s as one of the youngest artists at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, Steiner quickly made a name for himself with his bold, informel paintings—gestural, vibrant, and poised at the precipice of abstraction. Yet it was restless curiosity that drove him beyond the canvas. Influenced by the energy of New York’s Fluxus and Pop Art circles, and formative encounters with luminaries such as Allan Kaprow, Robert Motherwell, and Lil Picard, Steiner returned to Berlin with a vision to rethink the art world’s boundaries.

The legendary Hotel Steiner, opened in 1970 near Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, became an open forum for avant-garde exchange. Here, icons such as Joseph Beuys and Arthur Køpcke mixed with international artists, their discussions over art and life echoing the liberating spirit of the Café Voltaire. The Hotel—much like Andy Warhol’s Chelsea scene—epitomised Steiner’s belief in art as a communal act, lived and performed, never static.

Steiner’s formative years also witnessed his shift from painting to experimental media. Early exposure to experimental film at New York’s creative frontier led him towards video—a then-nascent medium that would become his signature and area of enduring innovation. In Berlin, following inspirations from Italian studios such as Art/Tapes/22, Steiner founded his own Studiogalerie in 1974. The gallery broke new ground as an open platform for video productions, performance art, and exhibitions—a rare confluence of creative forces that helped define Berlin’s distinct contribution to the contemporary arts.

In the Studiogalerie, Mike Steiner provided rare access to professional video equipment, cultivating a generation of artists working in new media. His collaborations with figures such as Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, and Ulay gave rise to pivotal works of international resonance. Most famously, Steiner co-produced and documented ‘Irritation – There Is a Criminal Touch to Art’ (1976), in which Ulay audaciously removed Carl Spitzweg’s ‘Der arme Poet’ from Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie as a performative, critical intervention on the sanctity of art. The event, meticulously videotaped by Steiner, stands as one of the seminal moments in German performance and video history.

This penchant for crossing artistic boundaries put Steiner in league with contemporaries such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and Gary Hill—pioneers who likewise blurred distinctions between visual and media art. Yet where Paik’s electronic poetry and Viola’s meditative video installations seek transcendence, Steiner’s work is firmly anchored in the socio-political reality and intellectual fervour of urban Berlin. His curatorial work at the Studiogalerie brought performers like Carolee Schneemann and Jochen Gerz to a Berlin audience, making the city a crucible of action, disturbance, and critical engagement.

As the archive at Mike Steiner – Official Artist Website reveals, the 1980s marked an intensive phase of artistic experimentation. Steiner’s media repertoire expanded to include Super-8 film, photography, copy art, slide series, minimal art, and hard edge painting. Perhaps most emblematic are his “Painted Tapes”: visually dense works fusing the immediacy of video with painterly gestures, challenging the statics of each discipline and hinting at the cyborg aesthetics later explored by the likes of Pipilotti Rist or Steve McQueen.

Steiner’s role as an organiser and broadcaster cannot be overstated. From 1985 to 1990, his pioneering television program ‘Videogalerie’ brought contemporary video art into German living rooms, featuring over 120 episodes of artist portraits, interviews, and reports—a format inspired by Gerry Schum’s earlier ‘Fernsehgalerie’ but updated for a new generation. Steiner’s critical yet passionate commentaries on video art positioned him as both chronicler and shaper of the medium’s dissemination.

Beyond individual works, Steiner’s impact is perhaps best encapsulated by his private video tape collection—an archive now held in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin. This trove, featuring early pieces by Ulay, Abramovi?, Valie Export, Jochen Gerz as well as international innovators such as Allan Kaprow, Richard Serra, and George Maciunas, remains a core document of the evolution of video and performance art. The major solo exhibition ‘Mike Steiner – Color Works’ (1999) at Hamburger Bahnhof paid tribute to his independent thinking and collaborative ethos, highlighting the ongoing relevance of his artistic vision.

In the late phase of his practice, from 2000 onwards, Steiner’s focus returned to abstract painting. The energy of his earlier years now condensed into highly gestural, often luminous canvases—testaments to both continuity and perpetual reinvention. His final works, including textile pieces, echo the conceptual freedom that had always defined his approach to art-making.

Fascinating throughout is Mike Steiner’s restless commitment to the avant-garde. Far from resting on early successes, he continually sought new forms, new networks, and new publics, be it in Berlin’s bohemian circles, New York’s flux of ideas, or on international stages from Seoul to San Francisco. His work and legacy reveal a relentless drive to expand the possibilities of contemporary art, question the givens, and place human experience—fleeting, ephemeral, radiant—at the centre of artistic expression.

This spirit remains tangible today, not only in his enduring installations and tapes but in the architecture of Berlin’s art scene itself. To delve deeper into the archive is to encounter a body of work that feels at once radical and intimate—a testament to creativity unbound by material or genre.

Steiner’s oeuvre is thus not simply a chapter in art history but a constant challenge: How do we look at art, how do we remember, and how do we remain receptive to surprise?

For all those who value the evolution of contemporary arts in Berlin and beyond, Mike Steiner’s legacy is a vital reference point—a living bridge between painting, performance, and the digital imaginary. His career ultimately embodies the vitality and experimental spirit that keep contemporary art in perpetual motion. Art lovers are warmly encouraged to explore his work further via the official site, which offers not only a journey through Steiner’s versatile practice, but also a unique perspective on the shapes and currents of recent art history.