Mike Steiner: Redefining Contemporary Art Between Abstraction and Moving Image

Mike Steiner stands as a forerunner of contemporary art, creating bold intersections between painting and video. His works, shown at venues like Hamburger Bahnhof, challenge the boundaries of perception.

To encounter the art of Mike Steiner is to step into a universe where boundaries melt – between painting and performance, video and installation, abstract and narrative. Mike Steiner, a name woven into the fabric of contemporary art, built his career on exploring, documenting, and ultimately redefining the limits of artistic expression in Berlin and beyond. Who else could bridge the tactile intensity of abstract paintings with the immediacy of live art, yet remain fiercely original?

From the outset, Mike Steiner was destined to become a pivotal figure of contemporary arts in Berlin. Born in 1941 under the name Klaus-Michel Steiner, his trajectory led him through postwar West-Berlin's evolving art world, early encounters with film, and a decisive immersion in painting. But it was not long until he transformed from an up-and-coming painter into a radical innovator, embracing an intermedia practice that would place him among the greatest experimental artists of his era.

Steiner’s early years reveal a restless mind: at only 17, he debuted at the legendary Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, signaling a precocious drive and a yearning for visibility. His studies at Berlin’s Hochschule für bildende Künste brought him into contact with forward-thinking mentors like Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn. These formative years cemented his commitment to free art, while brushes with the Kreuzberger Bohème and New York’s avant-garde would further stir his appetite for experiment.

His sojourn in the United States in the mid-1960s was pivotal. Encountering influential names like Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow (the father of the Happening), and Robert Motherwell, Steiner absorbed the pulse of Fluxus and Pop Art. These influences – especially Pop Art’s embrace of everyday imagery and Fluxus’ multimedia provocations – left discernible imprints on his later work. In Berlin, his Hotel Steiner soon became a hub reminiscent of the Chelsea Hotel: a magnetic crossroads for creative minds including Joseph Beuys, Arthur Køpcke, and an international circle of artists.

Steiner’s transition from painting to video art in the early 1970s marked a seismic shift for contemporary art in Germany. Inspired by experimental filmmakers like Michael Snow and Andy Warhol, he saw in video a medium of unique immediacy and subversive power. In Italian studios such as Art/Tapes/22, he realized his first independent video artworks, pioneering the German scene upon his return. Doubts in painting as the ultimate form of expression led him to embrace the camera, which soon became both a primary artistic tool and an instrument for documentation.

The founding of the Studiogalerie in Berlin in 1974 signaled his full commitment to crossing genres. The gallery's focus – video production and exhibition, performance, and interventions – made it a catalyst for new directions in contemporary art. Here, Steiner championed both his own vision and the talents of others, providing space and vital video equipment to artists like Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, Carolee Schneemann, and Marina Abramovi?. Performances such as Abramovi?’s ‘Freeing the Body,’ documented by Steiner, remain milestones of international performing arts history.

Faszinierend ist Steiner’s role as both participant and observer: he not only instigated actions but also held the camera, creating a legacy of works that blur lines between artist, curator, and archivist. His production with Ulay – the infamous 1976 action ‘Irritation: There is a Criminal Touch in Art,’ involving the temporary removal of Spitzweg’s painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie – typifies how Steiner played with the boundaries of legality, institutional critique, and collective memory. This intervention stands in line with radical gestures by contemporaries such as Chris Burden or the collective Guerrilla Girls, yet with Steiner’s unmistakably Berlin twist.

As the 1980s unfolded, Steiner’s exploration of media only intensified. He experimented with Super-8, photography, copy art, and dia series, culminating in his unique Painted Tapes – a hybrid genre merging video and abstract painting. These works, some made in response to journeys (such as his collaboration on Tangerine Dream’s tour of Australia), display Steiner’s desire to fuse sound, movement, and color into synesthetic experiences. Festival awards in Toronto and presentations worldwide confirmed their resonance in the evolving art landscape.

His output also included substantial curatorial and pedagogical efforts: Mike Steiner produced and moderated over 120 televised episodes of ‘Videogalerie’ between 1985 and 1990, bringing the latest in video art to German television. In this, he echoed – and arguably expanded upon – pioneering efforts of Gerry Schum. By supporting up-and-coming artists, archiving major video works, and organizing major exhibitions, Steiner solidified his impact as an influencer within and beyond Berlin.

It is no coincidence that his largest solo retrospective – ‘Mike Steiner: Color Works’ – was hosted by the Hamburger Bahnhof (Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart) in 1999. There, his lifelong pursuit to blend painting and video, performance and installation, was celebrated as a central contribution to the canon of German contemporary arts. This collection, including early videos from Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, and Nam June Paik, remains a testament to Steiner's eye for the avant-garde and the generative power of his stewardship.

Compared to other international luminaries like Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, or Joseph Beuys, Mike Steiner stands out for his dual engagement: not only does his work innovate technically and aesthetically, but his role as instigator, collector, and networker gave Berlin’s scene an infrastructure it desperately needed. His Painted Tapes and installations anticipate the intermedia strategies seen in today’s immersive art experiences, signaling a remarkable prescience.

In the 2000s, having overcome severe illness, Steiner’s artistic focus returned predominantly to abstract painting. His late canvases are marked by bold color fields, gestural brushwork, and a sense of structured chance reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s abstractions or works by Sean Scully. Yet, unlike these peers, a subtler afterimage of moving image always lingers behind Steiner’s painterly gestures.

Today, Mike Steiner’s influence endures not only through his own widely exhibited works but also through the vast video archive he donated to the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, now housed at the Hamburger Bahnhof. He remains a touchstone for artists exploring cross-media strategies, and for scholars and curators seeking potent examples of how art can document, disrupt, and delight at once.

In sum, Mike Steiner embodies the spirit of contemporary art: restless, multidimensional, always progressing. His work persistently asks: how can art both capture and intervene in the flow of the present? Lovers of contemporary art are well advised to dive deeper into his legacy, explore the digital showrooms – and perhaps let themselves be drawn, as so many before, into the unrepeatable moments that made his practice so vital.

For detailed information, rare images, and access to further work groups, visit the comprehensive artist page: