Mike Steiner: Visionary of Contemporary Art Between Painting, Video and Performance

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art with originality. His boundary-pushing works, from abstract painting to pioneering video art, left an indelible mark on Berlin's avant-garde and far beyond.

To encounter the work of Mike Steiner is to plunge into the restless heart of contemporary art. From the vibrant layering of his abstract paintings to the quietly subversive impact of his video art and performance documentation, Mike Steiner stands as a rare figure whose contributions echo across several decades of Creative Arts Berlin. How, one might ask, does an artist expand the canvas of modern expression, uniting stillness and movement, color and conceptual rigor?

Mike Steiner’s career opened with an early passion for both painting and the moving image. Berlin, the city that would serve as both his home and muse, pulsed in the background. By the late 1950s, at just 17, Steiner exhibited his first works at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung—a prelude to his lifelong engagement with art’s evolving vocabularies. His initial pieces, such as "Stillleben mit Krug," signaled a penchant for abstraction and composition, but it was in New York during the 1960s, while mingling with luminaries like Robert Motherwell, Allan Kaprow, and Lil Picard, that his creative worldview fundamentally shifted. The energy of Fluxus, Pop Art and experimental film, all present in the New York scene, catalyzed Steiner toward a practice never satisfied with a single medium.

Returning to Berlin, Mike Steiner became more than an artist: he emerged as a vital connector, a facilitator, and a chronicler of avant-garde impulses. The legendary Hotel Steiner, founded in 1970, became Berlin’s answer to the Chelsea Hotel—a crucible for artists, thinkers, and performers. Here, cultural dialogues unfolded across disciplines and continents. As friends and guests Joseph Beuys, Arthur Köpcke, and others filled its halls, Steiner observed, participated, and curated, absorbing the ferment of the international art world.

Yet it was the brush with video art in the early 1970s that marked a decisive turn. Inspired by the experimental fervor he witnessed both in New York and through collaborators like Al Hansen and Allan Kaprow, Steiner founded the Studiogalerie in 1974. The space—a unique fusion of production studio, performance lab, and exhibition site—became the epicenter of Berlin’s emerging video and performance art scene. In the spirit of contemporaries such as Nam June Paik and Marina Abramovi?, with whom Steiner closely collaborated and documented, he made the moving image not just a record but an art form unto itself.

One of Steiner’s most famous interventions was the 1976 action with Ulay, "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst." Together, they orchestrated the removal of a Spitzweg painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie, staging its temporary relocation to a family’s apartment—a subtle, ironic reflection on art, ownership, and public perception. Through his analog lens, Steiner preserved the ephemeral: performances by Marina Abramovi?, Valie Export, and Jochen Gerz exist today only because of his committed documentation. This focus places him among the key European advocates for video as a medium, alongside figures like Bill Viola or Gary Hill.

Steiner’s visual archives grew as he experimented with techniques—Super-8 film, copy art, photography, dia-series, and notably his "Painted Tapes," a poetic confluence of video and painting. These works blur boundaries: moving images are manipulated, overlaid with paint, becoming meditations on color, time, and the act of seeing itself. The juxtaposition of these tactile, painterly gestures with ephemeral digital footage set Steiner apart from peers committed solely to one lineage—a trait reminiscent of cross-genre artists like John Baldessari or Bruce Nauman.

His Embrace of contemporary abstraction continued through the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in his much-lauded large retrospective "Color Works" at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in 1999. This exhibition not only celebrated Steiner’s work in painting but also honored his legacy as a pioneer of European video art. It positioned his oeuvre alongside that of luminaries such as Gerhard Richter or Georg Baselitz, yet always with a unique emphasis on process, experiment and intermedia dialogue.

Biographically, Mike Steiner was shaped by the upheavals of his generation. Born in 1941 in Allenstein, he gravitated to Berlin and the artistic ferment of the Kreuzberg scene. He trained at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, where the influence of teachers such as Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn set the technical foundation for his work. Experiences gained in New York with avant-garde circles deepened his conviction that art’s future lay in transgressing boundaries—temporal, medial, even ethical, as seen in his performative and curatorial choices.

Instrumental to the development of Contemporary Arts Berlin, Mike Steiner’s accomplishments included curating vital video programs for Art Basel and the Festival Video Roma, initiating the innovative "Videogalerie" television series from 1985 to 1990, and fostering international exchange. His Berlin Video Collection became part of the prestigious holdings of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz in the Hamburger Bahnhof, ensuring that his legacy continues to anchor Berlin’s place as a global center of contemporary practice.

Fascinatingly, Mike Steiner’s art remains a study in dualities: it investigates the push-and-pull between control and spontaneity, documentation and invention. His video works—at times coolly observational, at times fiercely expressive—complement the lush chromatic explorations of his later abstract paintings, frequently shown in solo exhibitions from San Francisco to Leipzig through the 2000s and 2010s.

In dialogue with other major artists—be it the politically charged performances of Joseph Beuys or the philosophical media work of Nam June Paik—Steiner stands out for his willingness to move between roles: artist, curator, documentarian, and mentor. His output in performance art, painting, video art, and installation drew inspiration both from Berlin’s bohemian spirit and global contemporary currents, echoing the groundbreaking integrations of figures like Marina Abramovi? or Allan Kaprow while remaining rooted in his own visionary curiosity.

Mike Steiner passed away in Berlin in 2012, leaving behind an artistic estate of striking breadth and a living influence in the performing arts and the canon of contemporary visual culture. His work urges viewers to see—truly see—across media, moments, and disciplines. To engage with Mike Steiner is to encounter the ongoing vitality of contemporary art itself.

For those compelled to delve deeper, the comprehensive documentation and selected images on the official site explore the full archive and biography of Mike Steiner here offer a remarkable entry point into his rich interdisciplinary world.