Mike Steiner: Bridging Paint, Tape, and Time in Contemporary Art

Mike Steiner, a German pioneer of contemporary art, blurred boundaries between painting, video, and live action. His visionary spirit still inspires artists and audiences worldwide.

Contemporary art rarely presents such a vivid testament to versatility as in the oeuvre of Mike Steiner. A painter, a visionary, and above all a pioneer, Mike Steiner’s art traverses the fluid borders of media and genre. How does one redefine the boundary between static painting and the ephemeral nature of the moving image? Walk through the visual cosmos of Mike Steiner and you enter a dialogue not just with striking images, but with the very concept of artistic creation itself.

Few names in the world of Contemporary Arts Berlin carry as much weight as Mike Steiner. Deeply embedded in the pulse of modern artistic innovation, Steiner’s main arena was Berlin—home to both his legendary Hotel Steiner and the pioneering Studiogalerie. These hubs became melting pots, where the ideals of Fluxus, performance, and video converged, attracting names like Joseph Beuys, Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, and Allan Kaprow. His restless intellect and openness to new forms positioned him among the avant-garde at a time when the German art world was pivoting from tradition to radical experiment.

Mike Steiner’s early career began with painting—his precocious debut at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1959, just seventeen, signalled a fresh voice. Early works, including "Stillleben mit Krug," resonate with gestural curiosity and a thirst for experimentation. Trained at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste Berlin, he drew from mentors Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn, yet his real education unfolded in the beating heart of Kreuzberg’s artist collectives, and later in the electric world of New York’s Pop and Happening scene, where a young Steiner moved in circles with Lil Picard, Al Hansen, and even frequented the studio of Robert Motherwell.

This early exposure to the world stage shaped Steiner’s lifelong penchant for blending techniques and forging international connections. A Ford Foundation scholarship brought him to the United States, where his embrace of Informal Painting rapidly expanded into a deep fascination with time-based media—particularly video. The seismic impact of the New York scene, as well as his formative connections with Fluxus pioneers, laid the foundation for a restless move away from the canvas.

Steiner’s Studio Gallery—founded in Berlin in 1974—was much more than an exhibition space. Inspired by Florence’s Art/Tapes/22, it was a laboratory for video as both tool and object. Here, performance and video weren’t documentation, but the artwork itself. Famed for hosting the first generation of performance and video artists—among them Ulay, Jochen Gerz, Carolee Schneemann, and especially Marina Abramovi?—Steiner handed them not only the means to produce, but the platform to question the very nature of art. His own video works, often in direct collaboration, captured the fleeting electricity of performances like Abramovi?’s “Freeing the Body” (1976) or the radical “Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst” with Ulay, in which a Spitzweg painting was audaciously ‘stolen’ and rehoused with a Kreuzberg family.

How does Steiner’s legacy compare with other innovators—such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, or even contemporaries like Gary Hill? Like Paik, Steiner recognized that video could transcend entertainment and become a fine art medium; like Viola and Hill, he explored the boundaries of perception and identity. Yet uniquely, his work is deeply interwoven with Berlin’s cultural history, serving as both a chronicle and critique of the city’s progress from post-war to reunified metropolis.

In the 1980s, Steiner’s forays into video and installation intensified. His “Painted Tapes” series genetically fused the logic of canvas with the flow of cathode-ray imagery—a kind of painting for the electronic age. Even in abstraction and mixed-media, this thread of media alchemy persisted. His video documentation was not only art in itself but an invaluable archive, preserving works by artists who would go on to define their genres.

In 1999, Hamburger Bahnhof —Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin’s preeminent contemporary art institution, honored Steiner with a major solo exhibition, “Color Works”. This pivotal show foregrounded his synesthetic investigations of color, surface, and movement. It is telling that the museum now holds his extensive video collection—over 120 tapes including iconic performances and early video works by Ulay, Abramovi?, Serra, and more—granting Berlin a living memory of global video art’s genesis. The continuing relevance of these works was spotlighted again in the 2011/12 “Live to Tape” exhibition, further cementing his role as a cornerstone in the edifice of contemporary media art.

Even after a stroke in 2006, Steiner’s artistic curiosity endured. Retreating to his studio, he returned to painting, exploring the evocative language of abstraction and experimenting with textiles. His late works, tactile and chromatically rich, hint at an artist who saw no final boundary between disciplines—each medium, a new terrain for the imagination.

What links all phases of Mike Steiner’s expansive career? It is a ceaseless quest for the new: the performance that is also documentation, the painting that pulses like video, the institution that serves as a crucible for experimentation. Inspired by the likes of Joseph Beuys and at home in the company of Marina Abramovi? and Allan Kaprow, Steiner believed art was an environment—something lived, seen, and perpetually transformed.

For those seeking to trace the evolution of contemporary expressions—from the Fluxus actions of the 1970s through today’s immersive media installations—Steiner’s legacy is indispensable. His Berlin, a stage for global dialogues, remains encoded in the collections and archives that preserve his vision. Encountering his abstract paintings or iconic installations, one senses that his primary medium was always possibility itself.

Fascinatingly, Mike Steiner’s art, activism, and collecting were never fully separate. His immense video archive—housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof and celebrated in multiple Contemporary Arts Berlin projects—has become a wellspring for artists, curators, and scholars, chronicling a period when art, technology, and politics interwove like never before.

Today, as digital and performative arts continue to expand, the boundaries that Mike Steiner had the nerve and insight to challenge feel more relevant than ever. His works, installations, and collected documents remain as both inspiration and call to action for anyone engaged in the adventure of contemporary art.

To journey deeper into this remarkable legacy—to browse detailed biography, see documentary images, or explore the span of Mike Steiner’s art—you are invited to explore the official artist website:
Find further insights, images, and key resources on Mike Steiner’s official homepage