Mike Steiner: The Avant-Garde Legacy in Contemporary Art – From Painting to Video Pioneer

Mike Steiner has become a lasting figure in contemporary art, seamlessly merging painting, video, and performance. His influence on the arts scene in Berlin and beyond is as bold as it is indispensable.

Few names in contemporary art evoke such a sense of innovation and radical versatility as Mike Steiner. From the vibrant streets of Berlin to the renowned halls of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Mike Steiner’s trajectory reads like a compelling chronicle of modern artistic pursuit. Is it possible to locate the boundaries between the painted surface and the flickering image, between a solitary artwork and the electric network of performance? Steiner’s work urges us to venture into these transitional zones.

Mike Steiner’s artistic journey is inseparable from the pulse of Contemporary Arts Berlin. Born in Allenstein in 1941 and later rooted in West Berlin, his early exposure to film, followed by studies at Berlin’s Hochschule für Bildende Künste, set the course for a life spent crossing—and dissolving—artistic boundaries. Fast recognition came: at just 17, his public debut with a still life in the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung marked the beginning of decades of creative unrest. By the 1960s, Steiner was not only immersed in Berlin’s vibrant underground, but soon traversing to New York, where exchange with figures like Lil Picard and Allan Kaprow—pioneers of Fluxus and Happening—would seed his own experiments in form and media.

Steiner’s evolution from abstract paintings to the forefront of video and performance art would dramatically shape the Berlin art scene. Looking back, it’s striking how his early brushstrokes already betrayed the search for something beyond pigment or canvas—a quest that would find its answer in the luminous, time-based medium of video. What makes Mike Steiner unique is his intermedial approach: he did not merely adopt new tools, but forged entirely new platforms for artistic production and presentation.

The legendary Hotel Steiner, founded in 1970, quickly became Berlin’s counterpart to the Chelsea Hotel—a nerve center for the international avant-garde. Artists such as Joseph Beuys and Arthur Köpcke, along with American luminaries, mingled in Steiner’s hospitable, creative spaces. There, the border between life and art blurred; conversations over breakfast morphed naturally into site-specific interventions or glittering, unexpected performance arts gatherings. In this hotbed, ideas found fertile ground, and Berlin’s position as a contemporary arts capital solidified.

The story of the Studiogalerie, established in 1974, further cements Steiner’s reputation as a catalyst for groundbreaking forms. Inspired by Florence’s Studio Art/Tapes/22, Steiner transformed the Berlin venue into a laboratory for video and performance. Here, artists—including Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, Marina Abramovi?, and Ulay—were given the space, equipment, and encouragement to realize works that would push the envelope of contemporary expression. Not only did Mike Steiner operate as an artist and curator, but also as a documentarian: his camera captured fleeting moments, offering posterity rare windows into the ephemeral nature of performance art. A milestone work like "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst" (1976) with Ulay, involving the temporary removal of a Spitzweg masterpiece, embodied the era's blend of provocation, conceptual rigor, and narrative drama that Steiner championed.

Yet, Mike Steiner’s oeuvre is not limited to the kinetic spaces of performance and video. The 1980s brought an increased openness towards experimentation: super-8 films, photography, copy art, and installations joined his repertoire. Especially evocative are the Painted Tapes—a series where video frames met painterly interventions, fusing two otherwise disparate traditions. It is here that one senses Steiner’s restless curiosity and refusal to settle within one artistic discipline.

His influence rippled outward. As the first to curate a video art segment at Art Basel, as a producer of the pioneering "Videogalerie" TV show (1985-1990), and through his acquisitions for what would become the major Mike Steiner Video Collection—now held at the Hamburger Bahnhof—Steiner shaped the international landscape of video art. His collection, featuring early tapes by Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Marina Abramovi?, and many others, represents a vital archive of the late 20th century’s electronic avant-garde. The important 1999 solo exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, "COLOR WORKS", and subsequent institutional presentations, offered overdue recognition for his pioneering blend of painting and moving image, underlining his status as a central figure, alongside contemporaries like Joseph Beuys, George Maciunas, and Allan Kaprow.

Compared to contemporaries such as Nam June Paik, who is widely regarded as the father of video art, or Marina Abramovi?, the doyenne of performance, Mike Steiner’s place is distinguished by his role as both practitioner and infrastructure builder. Where Paik conjured playful technological poetics, Steiner provided the stage and archive for Europe’s video scene to flourish. Abramovi? explored the limits of the body; Steiner captured such risk-taking, ensuring its resonance beyond the moment. Like Christian Boltanski or Bruce Nauman, his artistry encompassed not just objects but also the curatorial and documentary realms, challenging what it means to leave an artistic legacy.

One cannot overlook how Mike Steiner’s trajectory mirrors that of Berlin itself—city of divides and convergences, of reinvention and resilience. His later years saw a renewed engagement with abstract paintings, where color fields and compositional tension continued the artist’s decades-long dialogue between order and disruption. Even after suffering a stroke in 2006, Steiner remained creatively active in his Berlin studio, returning to fabric works and exploring new material horizons until his death in 2012.

What, then, is the lasting legacy of Mike Steiner in contemporary art? His career is a testament to the power of boundary crossings: between static and moving images, between witness and author, between the singular and the communal artwork. His presence shaped not only collections and institutions—his ongoing impact is also felt in the approach of today’s artists, for whom interdisciplinarity has become second nature.

If you are drawn to the interplay between abstract paintings, performing arts, and the pulsation of new media, the world of Mike Steiner rewards close attention. His official website offers an illuminating gateway into his work and extensive archives; for those seeking a window into the avant-garde energies that continue to animate the heart of Berlin, it is essential viewing.