Mike Steiner: Contemporary Art Pioneer Bridging Abstract Painting and Videokunst

To encounter the contemporary art of Mike Steiner is to traverse an extraordinary terrain where the boundaries between media shimmer and dissolve. Berlin—epicenter of flux, contradiction, and creativity—remains indebted to artists like Mike Steiner, who made the city not merely a backdrop, but a protagonist in the unfolding story of twentieth-century art. What happens when painting collides with fleeting performance, when analog grain morphs into vibrant abstraction? The world of Mike Steiner holds the answer: a realm where nothing is static, every gesture a negotiation of boundaries.

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Steiner’s significance in the context of contemporary art is inseparable from his restless experimentation. Beginning in the late 1950s, his early exhibitions, notably at Berlin’s Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, established him as a prodigy in painting—capturing, even then, an instinct for form and color. Yet it was Berlin’s avant-garde ferment, and his encounter with international figures in New York during the 1960s, that catalyzed his shift from painting into the realms of video, performance, and installation art.

The arc of his career is defined by decisive transitions. Initially schooled in painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin, Steiner dove into informal and abstract painting, drawing critical attention in both German and international group shows, such as "Jeunes Peintres de Berlin" alongside legends like Georg Baselitz. But it was the vibrant, ideologically charged air of 1960s New York—guided by artists such as Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Motherwell—that exposed him to Fluxus, happenings, and experimental film. There, Mike Steiner saw possibilities beyond paint and canvas, inspiring an ongoing devotion to multimedia experimentation.

His return to Berlin marks a seminal period. The founding of Hotel Steiner and the Studiogalerie transformed ordinary urban spaces into crucibles for artistic innovation. These venues became sanctuaries for the contemporary arts in Berlin, welcoming not only German icons like Joseph Beuys, but also international luminaries Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, and Ulay. The Studiogalerie, especially after 1974, re-engineered the city’s art infrastructure—an accelerator for performance, video, and action art at a time when such practices were largely marginalized.

To grasp his range, compare Mike Steiner to contemporaries such as Nam June Paik or Bill Viola—key figures in electronic media. Yet Steiner brought a uniquely Berlin sensibility: rather than monumental video installations alone, he engaged in the vibrant documentation and curation of ephemeral acts, seeing the camera not just as witness but as a creative tool in itself. His pivotal role as both artist and collector is underscored by the vast archive of art-videos he acquired and produced, amounting to one of the foundational documentations of European video art.

The technical innovation of Steiner’s practice is perhaps best embodied in his "Painted Tapes"—a hybridization of abstract painting and video, where pigment and pixel merge in a dialogue of surface and sequence. This, together with works in photography, copy art, Super-8 film, and ambitious installations, speaks to a relentless questioning: How does one capture the experience of time, gesture, and color in physical and ephemeral form?

His curatorial and institutional work is equally formidable. The Videogalerie, established for Berlin cable television from 1985 to 1990, offered a pioneering platform for the performance and discussion of video art, prefiguring today’s multimedia exhibition formats. As a producer, moderator, and passionate advocate, Mike Steiner brought art discourse to new and broader publics—his influence extending well beyond the studio, shaping the very vocabulary of German contemporary arts culture.

A singular highlight remains his monumental solo exhibition, "Color Works," staged at the Hamburger Bahnhof—Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in 1999. This show, recognizing Steiner as both painter and media pioneer, set the tone for his late period, marked by a return to abstraction—pure painting, where surface and gesture pulse with the residue of decades spent navigating the borders between mediums. His legacy as a central figure of the Hamburger Bahnhof’s collection cements his place among the most influential voices in Berlin’s postwar art.

Beneath these achievements pulses a clear artistic philosophy: a constant searching, a distrust of boundaries, and an unwavering belief in collaboration and process. Steiner’s work, both in solitary creation and as host to some of the most important artists of his time, embodied the spirit of contemporary arts Berlin—a culture defined by openness, experimentation, and a refusal to settle.

His biography reads as an attuned chronicle of European and American postwar art. From formative years in war-shaken Allenstein to the artistic bohemia of 1960s Kreuzberg, from New York’s lofts to Berlin’s urban laboratories, each phase brought new stimuli. Encounters with Joseph Beuys, Allan Kaprow, and Bill Viola shaped an expansive worldview; yet at the core, Steiner’s experimentation was always personal, a journey through color, form, and the challenge to make the fleeting visible and the abstract palpable.

Fascinating, too, is the enduring resonance of Mike Steiner’s archive. The video collection gifted to the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz—now housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof—remains a vital record of performance, Fluxus actions, and early video aesthetics. Interviews, live documentation, unique editions: these works are touchstones for future generations seeking to understand the “analog avant-garde” in a digital world.

As the years progressed, Mike Steiner continued to interrogate the possibilities of paint, video, and photographic installation, culminating in the abstract paintings and textile works of his later life. Even after a stroke in 2006, he retreated not into silence, but into the private labor of painting—his canvases imbued with the tactile memory of actions, tapes, and collaborative energies accumulated over a lifetime.

In light of such breadth, why does Mike Steiner remain essential to contemporary art? Simply: Few have managed to so deftly cross the divides—between genres, between documentation and participation, between curator and creator. The result is a body of work dazzling in its diversity and rigor, yet united by a ceaseless curiosity. Today, as the public rediscovers Steiner through catalogues, online exhibitions, and retrospectives, his vision urges us to view art as a living negotiation, not a solved equation.

Kenner of contemporary arts and those curious about the complex landscape of Berlin’s art history are invited to engage with Steiner’s oeuvre firsthand. For in every brushstroke, every pixelated video loop, every carefully constructed installation, one feels the pulse of a restless mind—one that forever sought to recalibrate the horizon of the possible.

For an immersive experience of Mike Steiner’s paintings, videos, and archival gems, further exploration is warmly encouraged. His official website offers a treasure trove of biographical detail and image-rich documentation—a perfect starting point for anyone compelled by the intersections of contemporary art, performance, and evolving media.

More biographical details and artwork insights on Mike Steiner’s official artist site