Mike Steiner: Visionary of Contemporary Art and Multimedia Avantgarde
08.02.2026 - 07:10:01
Mike Steiner stands as a singular figure in contemporary art whose creative trajectory cut across genres, eras, and definitions. From his early beginnings as a prodigious painter to his status as a trailblazer in German videokunst, Steiner's work continually challenged the boundaries of the contemporary arts landscape in Berlin and beyond. How does one define the meeting point between images stilled on canvas and images set in motion? For Steiner, the line between the painted surface and the flickering video tape was never firmly drawn, but rather a field for ongoing exploration.
Discover contemporary art by Mike Steiner – explore his landmark artworks and installations here
Looking closely at Mike Steiner's oeuvre, one is immediately struck by its extraordinary range. Unlike many artists who remain tethered to one medium, Steiner moved fluidly between abstract paintings, video art, performance, and installation. Of pivotal importance was his immersion in the Contemporary Arts Berlin scene, where his oeuvre both anticipated and helped define new directions in multimedia art. The virtuosic interplay of material and concept is particularly palpable in the so-called "Painted Tapes," works that bridge the gap between the physicality of pigment and the immateriality of the electronic image—a notion ahead of its time.
Steiner's largest solo exhibition, staged in 1999 at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, stands as an institutional tribute to his multi-media legacy. Here, the National Gallery acknowledged not just an artist but a formative force who shaped how performance and video could interact with traditional forms. This major retrospective, a central event in the Berlin exhibition calendar, solidified his position alongside names such as Nam June Paik, Marina Abramovi?, and Joseph Beuys—peers and sometimes collaborators who also operated at the experimental frontiers of art.
Steiner's own journey was as remarkable as the transformations within his work. Born in 1941 in East Prussia and emerging in the postwar Berlin art world, he soon found himself at the heart of crucial movements. His training at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Berlin, his formative sojourns in New York amid the Fluxus community—introduced by contributors like Lil Picard and Robert Motherwell—and his subsequent returns to Berlin all marked phases of renewal. Steiner did not merely ride cultural currents—he generated them. The legendary Hotel Steiner and the Studiogalerie, founded in 1970 and 1974 respectively, became urban refuges for international artists, echoing the energy of New York's Chelsea Hotel or Paris's Café Voltaire.
Steiner’s commitment to artistic encounter transformed his venues into hubs for artists such as Joseph Beuys, Ulay, and Valie Export. Acts like the notorious 1976 performance with Ulay, involving the removal of a Spitzweg painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie, resonate to this day as audacious statements about art and public space. Similarly, the Studiogalerie became critical for the evolution of performance art, offering a space where feminist avantgarde and the likes of Jochen Gerz, Marina Abramovi?, and Carolee Schneemann could experiment freely.
What set Steiner apart, however, was his devotion to emerging media. While the Cologne scene gravitated toward institutional video art, Steiner dedicated his Berlin resources to hands-on, open production settings, making expensive equipment and exhibition space available for a new generation of video artists. This enabled Berlin's video and performance art community to blossom. During the 1980s, Steiner's own practice evolved further, embracing copy art, photo series, and what would later be recognized as pioneering steps toward media art installation.
His painted works, especially from the turn of the millennium, re-engage abstraction with the confidence of someone who had measured the limits of form and material in nearly every conceivable way. Steiner's later series display a vibrant handling of color and shape, reminiscent in their boldness of contemporaries such as Gerhard Richter or Bridget Riley, yet always underpinned by a conceptual foundation rooted in Fluxus and performance traditions. His "Color Works" series, enjoyed by visitors to the Hamburger Bahnhof, are testament to a visual intelligence that never stood still.
Steiner's impact as an artist cannot be considered outside his importance as a collector and chronicler of his era. His archive—a major component now housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof—embodies a living history of videokunst. Early tapes by Gary Hill, Bill Viola, Richard Serra, and even luminaries like Allan Kaprow and George Maciunas, entered his collection as he recognized the historicity of the moment. That much of this corpus remains undigitized only underlines the urgency and depth of Steiner’s contribution; the future of contemporary arts in Berlin is, to a considerable extent, built on the back of his vision and curatorial care.
Yet there was always a sense of searching in Mike Steiner’s works. Colleagues and critics have observed the "crisis of legitimacy" he felt towards painting, a tension that drove him toward the electronic image and back again. This internal questioning gave his art the restless vitality so prized by connoisseurs of contemporary art. Where some artists settle, Steiner pressed onward into new territory—technically, conceptually, and spatially.
In the context of performing arts and the evolving discourse on media, his efforts have been nothing short of foundational. Like Nam June Paik, whose video sculptures upended viewing habits, or Marina Abramovi?, whose body became the locus of meaning, Mike Steiner placed the space between performer, viewer, and medium front and center. He translated these concerns into a distinctly Berlin vocabulary—one both cosmopolitan and fiercely local, embedded in the singular postwar energy of the city.
Why, then, revisit Mike Steiner’s legacy today? In a time when boundaries between disciplines blur more than ever, Steiner's life and work model the productive tension of experimentation and tradition, of independence and collectivity. His work speaks directly to anyone invested in the future of contemporary arts, as well as those captivated by its past.
For all interested in seeing key works and diving further into the rich universe of Mike Steiner’s art, his official site offers extensive documentation and images. Engaging with the visual and archival tapestry he left behind is an invitation—both to appreciate his unique vision and to reflect anew on the restless creativity that propelled contemporary art into the present moment.
