Mike Steiner: Contemporary Art Pioneer Between Painting and Video Revolution

How does one define contemporary art when its boundaries are constantly being pushed and rewritten? Standing at this crossroads, Mike Steiner emerges as an uncompromising pioneer whose artistic trajectory challenged conventions and helped shape the very definition of contemporary art in Berlin and beyond. His name is synonymous with a restless creative energy, a relentless quest for new forms, and a unique capacity to turn the personal into the visionary. From the earliest days as a painter in post-war Berlin to dazzling experiments with video, action, and installation, Mike Steiner’s work vibrates with moments of pure discovery.

Discover contemporary art by Mike Steiner – see his key works and exhibitions here

Steiner’s oeuvre resists easy categorization: while his beginnings in abstract painting already hinted at a desire for exploration, it is his later multimedia and video art that registers as truly ground-breaking. The towering retrospective at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in 1999, which spotlighted over three decades of creation in "COLOR WORKS 1995-98", proved how his approach to color, surface, and medium had influenced an entire era of Contemporary Arts Berlin.

But to start with painting alone would be to miss Steiner’s igniting spark. Born Klaus-Michel Steiner in 1941 in Allenstein, he was shaped by the weight of European history, his family’s move to West Berlin, and early encounters with both local and international artists. His formal studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste placed him in a milieu shared by names like Georg Baselitz and Karl Horst Hödicke, a connection that would prove instrumental. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Mike Steiner was never satisfied with boundaries. His fascination for American Pop Art, rooted in his early 1960s travels to New York, expanded into new artistic dimensions after meeting figures such as Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, and even frequenting Robert Motherwell’s studio.

Steiner’s transition from painting to video came not from a lack of skill on the canvas, but from restless curiosity. His so-called "legitimation crisis of painting," as documented in his verbal reflections, propelled him to search for a more direct interface between artist, medium, and audience. The result: the founding of the Studiogalerie in Berlin in 1974, inspired by Florence’s Studio Art/Tapes/22, became a crucible for fluxus, performance, and what would soon be recognized as the vanguard of video art. This unique space not only supported Mike Steiner’s own burgeoning video experiments, but also those of groundbreaking artists such as Marina Abramovi?, Ulay, Valie Export, and Carolee Schneemann.

It was in this vibrant context that "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst" (1976) with Ulay seized public attention: part staged action, part media critique, famously involving the (temporary) removal of Spitzweg’s "Der arme Poet" from Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, it brought performance art into the heart of media discourse. These iconic works, captured on tape, reveal Steiner’s conviction that art must be both witnessed and preserved, that the instantaneous deserves an afterlife beyond the ephemeral moment.

His support for the performing arts was more than curatorial: he provided equipment, space and – perhaps most vital – artistic belief. Just as Joseph Beuys broadened the notion of what sculpture could be, or Nam June Paik redefined moving images, Mike Steiner democratized the visual vocabulary of Berlin. His contemporaries recognized this spirit. As documented, figures like Vito Acconci, Allan Kaprow, and Gary Hill often intersected within the web of connections surrounding the Studiogalerie. In this sense, Steiner shares spiritual kinship with artists such as Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, and the technological boundary-pushers of the global avant-garde. The link to the Hamburger Bahnhof, where his video collection found a permanent home, is more than symbolic: it marks the institutional recognition of innovation, risk, and the enduring value of documentation within contemporary art.

The 1980s saw Steiner expanding even further: from "Painted Tapes" — audacious syntheses of video, painting, and sound — to collaborations with electronic musicians like Tangerine Dream, his practice always fed off the pulse of the city and the crosscurrents of its scenes. His role as both artist and collector shines here: the "Berlin Video" program, assembled for Interferenzen: Kunst aus Westberlin 1960-1990, reflected not just his artistic taste, but his sense of duty to posterity. Among his personal highlights are key works and installations still celebrated today, including the "Stilles Fenster/Fensterinstallationen", and his late-phase abstract paintings, which circle back to a lifelong fascination with color, space, and the material possibilities of the canvas.

Personal philosophy? For Mike Steiner, art was always an open system: never definitive, always becoming. Fascinating is the sense that for him, each medium was less a tool than a partner — canvas, camera, and performance alike existed in a chain of action and reaction. His Studio—later immortalized in eccentric events like the legendary "Hotel Room Event" performance marathon with Ben Vautier—was equal parts laboratory and stage, a setting were categories dissolved and new genres were born. As he once observed on video, “art is above all an event; it happens — and what remains is the encounter.”

After a life intensively dedicated to the energies of the moment, Steiner’s later years brought new depth to his abstract painting, yet with unmistakable echoes of his multimedia beginnings. Textile works and deeply chromatic canvases from the 2000s, which featured in galleries from Berlin to Leipzig, show an energetic hand undimmed by time. Even after a stroke in 2006, his last years remained creatively rich; the visual power of his final pieces attests to an indomitable artistic will.

What then is the legacy of Mike Steiner in contemporary art? It lies in the way he refused to see art as a fixed product or academic discipline — but as an evolving field of possibilities. His archive, now largely preserved at the Hamburger Bahnhof, stands as a beacon for anyone exploring the links between painting, video, and the poetics of performance. Kenner schätzen particularly how Steiner’s work expands our sense of what art can be: truly polyphonic, always dialogic, and fiercely alive.

Those eager to engage more deeply with Steiner’s work, his exhibitions, or his vast video collection are invited to consult the extensive resources on the official artist website: Discover more about Mike Steiner’s life, art, and enduring influence.