Mike Steiner: Pioneering Contemporary Art Between Canvas, Video and Performance in Berlin

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art in Berlin like no other. His innovative work at the intersection of painting, video, and performing arts set new standards in the German and international art scene.

Is it possible to capture the radical pulse of an era in which art, technology and life itself merge? Mike Steiner’s life and oeuvre stand as a vivid answer to this question—his multifaceted practice reshapes the boundaries of contemporary art through a bold fusion of painting, videography, and performance. From his early abstract paintings to his genre-defining videos and high-profile Berlin exhibitions, Steiner’s artistic language remains as vibrant as the city that inspired him.

In the pantheon of Contemporary Arts Berlin, Mike Steiner occupies a singular place: not only as an artist but as a creator of spaces—physical and mental—where avant-garde dreams were realized. Steiner’s early start was meteoric: At just 17, he exhibited in Berlin’s Great Art Exhibition (GBK), and shortly after, mixed with the budding Kreuzberg artists’ collectives that would shape the city’s future cultural landscape. By the time he opened the now legendary Hotel Steiner and, later, his Studiogalerie in the 1970s, Steiner had already laid the foundations for a whole new mode of interdisciplinary artistic practice.

The Hamburg Bahnhof—a name etched into German art history—became the stage for his major 1999 solo show, a full-circle moment that highlighted his decades-long commitment to contemporary art. Berlin, ever restless, provided the backdrop for Steiner’s experimentations, which would ultimately situate his work alongside world-renowned figures such as Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovi?, Nam June Paik, and Allan Kaprow.

What distinguished Mike Steiner, from the outset, was his drive to unite diverse media, his championing of the new. His abstract paintings—marked by bold fields of color and energetic rhythms—evoke both classic modernism and a fierce urge to break away. The cool monumentality of large canvases meets, in his so-called "Painted Tapes," a fascinating hybrid: here, video stills and painterly gestures intertwine, as if motion could bleed into the texture of oil and acrylic. Steiner’s work resonates with the explorations of contemporaries like Gerhard Richter and Bill Viola, yet retains its irrepressible individuality—playful, searching, always in dialogue with its time.

His fascination with moving images blossomed during stays in New York, where he encountered influential figures in Fluxus and Pop Art. The city’s creative vortex—energized by Lil Picard, Al Hansen, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Motherwell—left a deep imprint. Steiner absorbed not only the artistic climate but the collaborative ethos, returning to Berlin with ideas and connections that would later fuel the Studiogalerie. This space rapidly emerged as Berlin’s nucleus for video art and actionism—artists such as Marina Abramovi?, Carolee Schneemann, Valie Export, and Ulay performed and created here, often with Steiner’s camera quietly documenting the fleeting magic of their actions.

The 1976 intervention with Ulay, famously capturing the temporary 'abduction' of Spitzweg’s "Der arme Poet" from the Neue Nationalgalerie (?Irritation: There is a Criminal Touch in Art?), became iconic—symbolizing both provocation and social reflection. Far from merely observing, Steiner chronicled and staged, blurring the roles of artist, curator, producer, and chronicler. His collection of artist videotapes grew into a landmark archive, containing rare footage from the likes of Richard Serra, Jochen Gerz, and George Maciunas.

Technically, Steiner’s works are studies in hybridity: he moved effortlessly between Super-8 film, photography, copy art, minimal and hard-edge painting. The "Painted Tapes"—celebrated at the Hamburger Bahnhof and other venues—epitomize his urge to reconcile the painterly with the electronic, the tactile with the transient. His abstract paintings from the 2000s, meanwhile, reveal meditative clarity and a reductionist focus reminiscent of contemporaries such as Ellsworth Kelly or Blinky Palermo—yet always distinctly his own.

Mike Steiner’s biography reads like a survey of late 20th-century innovation. Born in 1941 in Allenstein, he spent his childhood in Berlin, was initiated into painting while still a schoolboy, and studied at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste. After pivotal years in New York, he returned to Berlin, immersing himself in its Fluxus and Happening scenes. With the hotel and Studiogalerie, Steiner catalyzed Berlin’s transformation into a hub for cross-media practice—often acting as an enabler and catalyst for talent from both Europe and America. His role as mentor, networker and juror (not least for the DAAD’s prestigious Artists-in-Berlin Program) is reflected in the diversity of his contacts and collaborators.

Throughout, his approach was experimental, unafraid of controversy. Steiner questioned boundaries—between genres, between roles, between artist and audience. The seminal TV-format "Videogalerie" (1985-1990) brought video art to German screens in a pioneering weekly format, an audacious project that remains unmatched in its reach and ambition. This bridge-building continued with his work at the Hamburger Bahnhof, where, in 1999, Steiner’s "Color Works" and archive of contemporary video were exhibited, securing his place as a trailblazer in the annals of contemporary art.

His last years were shaped by a return to concentrated painting—large-scale abstractions imbued with gesture and light. Even after a stroke in 2006, Steiner continued to work privately in Berlin, quietly reinforcing the value of persistence and transformation in art.

What makes Mike Steiner still so relevant for today’s art audience? It is, above all, his refusal to be boxed in—by style, by medium, by expectation. He anticipated contemporary art’s omnivorous interdisciplinary turn, building connections and archives that remain a resource for researchers, curators, and artists alike. His impact on Performing Arts and on the trajectory of abstract painting and video installation in Berlin continues to reverberate—visible in the work of younger Berlin-based artists, as well as in the programs of institutions like Hamburger Bahnhof.

To immerse oneself in Mike Steiner’s universe is to experience Berlin’s contemporary art history in motion. For a deeper dive, including images, catalogues and a vibrant narrative of his life and art, the artist’s official homepage offers a rich trove. Mike Steiner stands as an essential reference for anyone curious about the dynamism at the heart of European performing and visual arts.