Mike Steiner and the Re-definition of Contemporary Art: From Avant-garde to Video Pioneer

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art like few others: painter, video artist, visionary. His legacy at the crossroads of Hamburg Bahnhof, interactive installations and performance art continues to impress.

How does one define the boundaries of art when encountering the work of Mike Steiner? Few artists have left as indelible a mark on contemporary art as Mike Steiner, whose name resonates with pioneering spirit, creative risk-taking and the relentless search for new forms of expression. With a career spanning abstract paintings, performance art, and groundbreaking forays into video, Mike Steiner’s oeuvre remains both remarkably diverse and unmistakably personal.

What makes Mike Steiner’s work so unique within the context of contemporary arts in Berlin and beyond? It is, perhaps, the seamless melding of media and genre: from the expressive rhythms of early abstract paintings to performative interventions and the avant-garde’s embrace of emerging technology. His work never stands still – it is performative, experimental and above all, courageous.

Steiner’s career began in post-war Berlin. His early fascination with film soon expanded into painting, with public exhibitions from the astonishingly young age of 17. He exhibited in the 1959 Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, already revealing a talent for the tactile interaction of color and form. Yet even as part of West Berlin’s Kreuzberger Künstlergruppen he began to question painting’s limitations – a restlessness that would later define his role within contemporary art.

Steiner’s years in New York during the vibrant 1960s were catalytic. Immersed in the worlds of Lil Picard, Robert Motherwell, Allan Kaprow and Al Hansen, Steiner moved effortlessly among the Fluxus movement, the Happenings of Allan Kaprow, and the nascent Pop Art scene. He brought these influences back to Berlin – enriching his process, sharpening his critical eye, and inciting his later shift toward performance, video and installation.

Returning to Berlin, Steiner became an energetic force in the city's burgeoning art scene. He was instrumental in creating new loci for experimentation: his legendary Hotel Steiner became an international creative hub, often likened to New York’s Chelsea Hotel for its gatherings of artists like Joseph Beuys and Arthur Köpcke. Here, the conversation extended well into the night, and the boundaries between art forms dissolved.

But Steiner’s most radical contribution to contemporary art came with his championing of video. He founded the Studiogalerie in 1974 in Berlin, modeled in part on Florence’s Studio Art/Tapes/22. The gallery was conceived as a “self-help project” for artists, providing access to expensive video equipment and a stage for performance art, particularly the genres of Happening and Fluxus. This was a true breakthrough at a time when Berlin lacked such initiatives.

Performance and video became enmeshed in his identity as both artist and documentarian. Through works like Marina Abramovi?’s "Freeing the Body" (1976) and the iconic action "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst" (with Ulay, 1976), Mike Steiner not only helped produce and film the events, but transformed how fleeting moments could be stored, remembered and reinterpreted.

His technical innovativeness also gave birth to new hybrid genres. The "Painted Tapes" series fuses video art with painterly gesture, a testament to his relentless experimentation and refusal to remain confined by medium. Similar in spirit to Nam June Paik and Bill Viola, yet unmistakably his own, Steiner’s oeuvre lays bridges between visual, audio and performative arts.

Among the many chapters of his storied career, several milestones stand out: his role in producing and curating the much-lauded TV format "Videogalerie" (1985–1990), bringing video art to a wide German television audience for the first time. His massive art archive—culminating in the grand Einzelausstellung at the Hamburger Bahnhof in 1999—cemented his legacy as both creator and preserver of contemporary art forms.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of Steiner’s work in the context of the Hamburger Bahnhof and his influence on both Berlin’s and the international art scene. The 1999 retrospective "Color Works" at the National Gallery remains a reference for contemporary exhibitions, much like retrospectives of Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovi? or Valie Export, whom Steiner exhibited and collaborated with extensively.

In terms of technique, his transition from painting to mixed media installations mirrored the evolution of the postwar European avant-garde. He worked in Super-8, copy art, slide series and hard edge painting—always searching for the next unexplored aesthetic terrain. His return to abstract painting in later years demonstrated a circular, yet ever-progressive, tendency. Even in the shadow of illness in the 2000s, he continued to create, exploring textile and fabric art alongside signature abstract language.

Steiner’s cultural impact cannot be separated from his role as a collector and networker. His ever-growing collection of early video art—including first editions from Gary Hill, Richard Serra and George Maciunas—became, upon its donation in 1999, a permanent part of the Hamburger Bahnhof’s holdings. The exhibition "Live to Tape" (2011/12) reintroduced a new generation to the wild, tactile possibilities of performance and video—the core of Steiner’s artistic philosophy.

Throughout his career, Mike Steiner aligned with, and yet distinguished himself from, peers such as Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovi? and Ulay. Unlike many contemporaries, his gift was not simply experimenting with art for its own sake, but in fostering a dynamic, inclusive space for the exchange and evolution of ideas—making Berliner contemporary arts, performance and video visible to an international audience.

What remains, then, is more than an archive: Mike Steiner’s art is a living dialogue, a perpetual experiment. For any serious observer of contemporary arts—whether enthralled by abstract paintings, art installation, or the shimmering after-image of video—Steiner’s multifaceted oeuvre offers not only historical fascination but continuing relevance.

Fascinating, at times provocative, always deeply engaged with the questions of art and society, Mike Steiner’s legacy invites a reconsideration of the limits and possibilities of contemporary art. A journey through his career is a journey through the transformations of art itself.

For further exploration into the world of Mike Steiner, including rich archival material, artworks and critical texts, the official website makes for a compelling visit. The conversation, much as in his legendary Hotel Steiner, is far from over.