Mike Steiner: Contemporary Art Pioneer between Painting and Videotape

What defines the boundary between canvas and moving image? In the universe of contemporary art, Mike Steiner’s name emerges as an answer to this question—an artist whose creative journey fused painting, video, and performance into a living dialogue. Few figures represent the adventurous spirit of Berlin’s Contemporary Arts scene as dynamically as Mike Steiner.

Discover contemporary masterpieces by Mike Steiner online now

With an eye tuned to experimentation, Steiner’s works regularly unsettled conventions. Born in 1941 in East Prussia, Mike Steiner migrated through Berlin’s bohemian circles as a young painter and soon blossomed into a restless agent of change. At just 17, he presented his first still life at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. By the 1960s, after seeing the light of the New York scene—befriended by artists like Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Motherwell—Steiner gravitated from Informel painting toward avant-garde film, Fluxus, and performance.

This collision of currents marked the origin of his artistic signature. Steiner’s canvases from those years reveal a gravity toward abstraction, but also a sense of unfinished experiment, a charged energy that soon searched broader forms of expression.

It was in Berlin’s iconic Hotel Steiner, established in 1970, that his vision truly crystallized. The hotel became a legendary melting pot, welcoming artists such as Joseph Beuys and Arthur Köpcke—an echo, perhaps, of Chelsea Hotel mythos but rooted in the evolving landscape of Contemporary Arts Berlin. Steiner, however, did not stop at painting or hosting: he founded Berlin’s Studiogalerie in 1974, offering artists an international stage and hands-on access to new video technology. Here, pioneers like Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, and Carolee Schneemann found space for performance and media intervention, often documented by Steiner’s own camera.

Among his most renowned moments stands the 1976 art action with Ulay, "Irritation – There is a Criminal Touch in Art", where the iconic Spitzweg painting "Der arme Poet" was removed from Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie only to reappear in a Kreuzberg home—an audacious, thought-provoking performance-protest meticulously filmed and curated by Steiner. This act alone cemented him as much more than a chronicler—he became a protagonist in performance art’s contemporary mythology.

The 1980s saw Steiner further expanding his repertoire. Experimentation flourished across Super 8 film, photography, Copy Art, and Hard Edge painting. His later "Painted Tapes" stand as remarkable hybrids—compositions where video frames and abstract painting meld into one, questioning the fixity of image and narrative. The video "Mojave Plan" (1993), blending music by Tangerine Dream with painterly overlays, received international distinction, underscoring Steiner’s obsession with transcending artistic boundaries.

Yet, all of these technical innovations are rooted in an ethos that values process above product. For Steiner, the archive was paramount—not simply as a collector’s trophy, but as a living memory bank of avant-garde experiment. His rapidly growing video art collection, which included rare tapes from luminaries like Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Gary Hill, and Allan Kaprow, would eventually become a cornerstone of Berlin’s art history. In 1999, Steiner’s collection was entrusted to the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and now resides within the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, immortalized in the landmark solo exhibition "Mike Steiner: Color Works" that same year.

When comparing Mike Steiner to key contemporaries—think Joseph Beuys’ radical sculpture, Nam June Paik’s media inventions, or Marina Abramovi?’s corporeal performances—his work bridges the expressive chasm between static and moving art. While others specialized, Steiner remained defiantly plural: champion for the minor forms, militant collector of ephemera, relentless documentarian, and creative host for artistic dialogue. In this, his approach anticipated—and perhaps even founded—the cross-media eclecticism that now marks much of today’s contemporary art.

Steiner’s contribution went beyond curatorial activism. He created the influential TV-format "Videogalerie" (1985–1990), producing and hosting over 120 episodes introducing videokunst to new audiences. His commitment to making video art accessible and archivable left an indelible impact, not just as an artist but as a cultural architect of performing arts and experimental genres.

By the late 1990s and into the new millennium, Steiner returned with fervor to painting—abstract compositions alive with the residues of his decades in media art. These later works, often showcased in exhibitions ranging from Berlin to San Francisco and Leipzig, demonstrate a visual vocabulary at once meditative and restless, retaining the spirit of "painted movement" seen throughout his oeuvre.

Sadly, after a stroke in 2006, Steiner’s public activity faded, yet his influence lingered. Until his passing in Berlin in 2012, he continued to create—dabbling in fabric works and painting, tying together themes of transformation and liminality that mark the journey from tape to canvas. Today, many of his pioneering video works and performance documents remain to be digitized—latent treasures waiting to reignite curiosity in new generations.

For those seeking the pulse of experimental art in post-war Europe, Mike Steiner’s career stands as a testament to creative courage. His unique mix of innovation and generosity—helping launch the careers of many artists, gathering and sharing ephemeral works—continues to shape Berlin’s reputation as a crucible for avant-garde and multimedia art. The official Mike Steiner website offers a deeper dive into his artistic universe, from early abstract paintings to video installations and performance records.

What keeps Mike Steiner relevant today? It’s his unyielding drive to cross-pollinate disciplines, his insight into art’s mutability, and his refusal to settle within easy definitions. His archive waits not only to be seen but to spark critical engagement—reminding us, in an age of rapid media shifts, that contemporary art is forever unfinished, always in dialogue with its next possible form.