Mike Steiner – Contemporary Art Pioneer Between Video, Performance, and Painting

Mike Steiner shaped contemporary art in Berlin and internationally as a master of transformation – from abstract painting to groundbreaking video art and immersive installations.

In the cosmos of contemporary art, few names evoke such curiosity and respect as Mike Steiner. How does one define the artistic space where painting dissolves into moving images, where performance, video, and installation become indivisibly intertwined? Mike Steiner challenged precisely these boundaries, crafting a multifaceted oeuvre that continues to vibrate at the heart of Berlin's creative pulse.

The story of Mike Steiner unfolds as a sequence of perpetual reinvention. Born in 1941 in what is today Olsztyn, Poland, Steiner spent much of his formative years amid the postwar dynamism of West Berlin. He first gained recognition as a painter, exhibiting at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung at just 17. Even in these early years, observers noted his fascination with both color compositions and the everyday dramas unfolding on the urban stage, hints that complexity and experimentation would become the throughlines of his career.

By the 1960s, Steiner’s restlessness propelled him into new circles. Studying at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin, he mingled with visionaries like Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn, while his travels to New York opened his mind to the avant-garde. Meeting artists such as Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow (the father of Happenings), and the legendary Robert Motherwell, Steiner was swept up in the ferment of Fluxus, Pop Art, and early multimedia art. These influences reverberated throughout his later career, manifesting in works that were as playful as they were conceptually rigorous.

The legendary Hotel Steiner—founded in 1970 near Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm—became a migratory hub for international artists. It was likened to Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Hotel in New York, a vibrant melting pot where Joseph Beuys, Arthur Köpcke, and countless others intersected in a seething flux of inspiration. As Lil Picard once described, the conversations there “extended into the undercurrent of spirit,” keeping Berlin’s bohemian fire burning all hours.

Yet the most significant turning point arrived as Steiner’s doubts about painting deepened. The burgeoning field of videokunst (video art) exerted a magnetic pull. By the early 1970s, equipped with a new artistic vocabulary learned in New York and Florence (at Maria Gloria Bicocchi’s Studio Art/Tapes/22), Steiner embarked on a new phase. His first video works—often collaborative, with figures like Al Hansen—signaled a departure from traditional media and a leap into the unknown territory of time-based art.

In 1974, Steiner opened the Studiogalerie in Berlin: an experimental lab for video, performance, and intermedia work. The space provided avant-garde artists, including Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, Carolee Schneemann, and Marina Abramovi?, the equipment and stage needed to manifest their radical visions. It was here that actions like Abramovi?’s ‘Freeing the Body’ and the infamous ‘Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst’ (with Ulay) were conceived, performed, and documented, blending ephemeral performance with the archival power of video.

Not content to merely produce and curate, Steiner became a pivotal collector of video art. His archive—containing foundational works by Ulay, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, Bill Viola, and many more—was later entrusted to the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and is now housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. The 1999 solo exhibition "COLOR WORKS" at the Hamburger Bahnhof underscored his role as both innovator and connector within the contemporary arts ecosystem of Berlin and beyond.

Steiner’s artistic language never stood still. From Super-8 film to photography, copy art, dia series, minimalist and hard-edge painting, his oeuvre anticipated the postmodern turn towards media hybridity. Particularly notable are his "Painted Tapes"—a fusion of hand-painted surfaces and video sequences, blurring the lines between gesture, image, and duration. Works like "Mojave Plan" and "Penumbras 3" (honored internationally for their pioneering character) stand as testaments to this restless spirit.

For Kenner of European contemporary art, parallels may be drawn to peers and pioneers such as Nam June Paik in Hamburg and New York, Valie Export in Vienna, or the American-born Bill Viola. Yet Mike Steiner’s distinctiveness lay in his role as mediator, not just between media but also between cultures. His Berlin, full of tumult and transitional energy, was as much a character in his work as any subject or process.

The performative side of his practice—organizing, producing, and archiving performances by others—was inextricably linked to the deep collectivism of the 1970s and 80s. Steiner’s commitment to documentation allowed fleeting moments—live performance, protest, experimental encounter—to resonate far beyond their original context. His contributions to TV, through the “Videogalerie” (1985–1990), anticipated today’s culture of on-demand digital art streaming, giving an entire generation unusual access to the pulse of the performing arts and contemporary arts in Berlin.

After suffering a stroke in 2006, Steiner retired largely from public life, yet continued painting in his Berlin studio. Since 2000, his focus returned to abstraction, now rich with the memory of decades navigating the thresholds between disciplines. In his final years, his output included not just paintings but also fabric-based works—quiet meditations on color, structure, and the permeability of artistic boundaries.

Fascinating throughout is Steiner’s experimental drive: each medium—whether oil, celluloid, videotape, or textile—became a testing ground for inquiry and transformation. His biography is woven from the threads of international avant-garde, Berlin’s bohemia, and a lifelong belief in the possibility of renewal through art.

Today, to encounter Mike Steiner’s work is to experience a vital slice of European contemporary art history. Whether through the lens of pioneering video installations at Hamburger Bahnhof or in the abstract harmonies of his later paintings, Steiner’s legacy is one of courageous experimentation. It is a legacy that prompts viewers to ask: Where do the boundaries of art truly lie—and who will cross them next?

For those eager to immerse themselves deeper, the official Mike Steiner website (Detailed documentation, bio, and exhibition history here) offers unparalleled insight into his prolific career. Make time to explore the full story—because, as Steiner’s career so vividly proves, the only constant in contemporary art is discovery.

@ ad-hoc-news.de