Mike Steiner: Pioneer of Contemporary Art, Video Innovations and Berlin Avantgarde

Mike Steiner’s career in contemporary art is a study in fearless transformation and visionary synthesis. From abstract painting to experimental video, he has persistently questioned the boundaries of his medium. What makes art truly contemporary, and how do space, time, and performance converge in the pulse of a city like Berlin? Steiner’s oeuvre proposes its own answers, oscillating between painterly subtlety and radical multimedia intervention—a stance that, to this day, electrifies curators and artists alike.

Discover contemporary artworks by Mike Steiner online—step into his world

Born in Allenstein in 1941 and later a central figure in West Berlin’s postwar avant-garde, Mike Steiner discovered an early fascination for film and painting. His artistic breakthrough came in 1959 as one of the youngest participants in the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung. His academic foundation at the State Academy of Fine Arts Berlin, under Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn, gave him a precise sense for painterly form—but already as a student, the urge for experiment stretched well beyond the canvas. This restlessness brought Steiner to New York in the mid-1960s: there he absorbed currents from the likes of Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, and Robert Motherwell, with Fluxus, happenings, and Pop Art as fertile ground for his transformative vision.

By the early 1970s, Steiner’s open, cross-media approach began to crystallize. His legendary Hotel Steiner near Ku’damm was not just a sanctuary for icons like Joseph Beuys or Arthur Køpcke, but a living laboratory for contemporary arts. The hotel’s conversations—echoing, as Lil Picard recounts, the spirit of old Berlin and Paris—mirrored Steiner’s belief in art as lived exchange, fluid and open-ended.

1974 was a key turning point, as Steiner founded the Studiogalerie in Berlin: a crucible for video art, performance, and actionism. Here, he not only made Berlin a hotspot for international performers such as Marina Abramovi?, Ulay, Valie Export, and Jochen Gerz, but also set new standards for documentation and accessibility. Steiner provided both equipment and stage to artists—a move echoing the efforts of Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell elsewhere in Europe and the USA. His approach prefigured the contemporary notion of 'platforms' in art: spaces where artists, works, and viewers mutually transform one another.

The collaboration with Ulay in 1976, culminating in the notorious performance “Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst” (the temporary 'theft' of Spitzweg’s 'Der arme Poet'), remains a defining moment in Berlin’s art history. The action, conceived as both protest and poetic intervention, placed Steiner not just as facilitator but as creative protagonist—his video documentation turned fleeting performance into a lasting, multilayered cultural artifact. In parallel, Steiner’s engagement with Marina Abramovi? (“Freeing the Body”, 1976) and Carolee Schneemann expanded his gallery’s role as incubator for feminist and political art forms, linking Berlin’s scene to global networks of actionism and contemporary installation.

As a video artist, Steiner’s own works from 1972 on—often in collaboration with figures like Al Hansen—bridge Minimal Art’s conciseness and the raw immediacy of performance. In the 1980s he deepened these intersections, creating the acclaimed “Painted Tapes” series: hybrids of analog video footage and painterly intervention, evoking a dialogue between static image and electronic pulse. Notable pieces from this era, such as “Mojave Plan” and “Penumbras 3” (produced with the band Tangerine Dream), underline Steiner’s conviction that painting can be reborn through electronic media—a kinship to the innovations of Bill Viola or Gary Hill, yet marked by uniquely Berlin sensibilities.

One cannot overstate the epochal role of Steiner’s collection: beginning in the 1970s, he assembled tapes from the likes of Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, Nam June Paik, Valie Export, Jochen Gerz, and Allan Kaprow. His video programming for events such as ART Basel and the Festival Video Roma established him as a leading curator and collector of contemporary videokunst—a role fittingly recognized when the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation took stewardship of his collection in 1999, now housed at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin.

Steiner’s 1999 solo exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, 'Color Works', stands as a milestone in contemporary arts Berlin—celebrating not only his multivalent practice but also his bridging of strict genre boundaries. Critics and viewers alike found in Steiner’s approach an eclectic, yet rigorously self-reflexive investigation of color, time, and abstraction. His later years shifted back towards painting—often abstract, sometimes in fabric—while his substantial video activities continued to be explored through retrospectives, notably 'Live to Tape' at Hamburger Bahnhof in 2011/12 and various solo shows in Berlin and beyond.

When compared to global contemporaries—Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik in video, Allan Kaprow in happenings, or Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovi? in performance—Mike Steiner’s contribution is marked by a distinct Berliner pragmatism united with avant-garde daring. While Nauman or Paik emphasized technological concept and globally distributed signal, Steiner’s practice maintained a strong sense of place, local network, and collaborative intimacy, rooting cosmopolitan experiment firmly in Berlin’s urban grain.

Biographically, Steiner’s life was entwined with the growth of postwar Berlin as a nucleus of creative exchange. From his early days in Kreuzberg bohemia, through formative encounters in New York, to his ultimate return and anchoring in West Berlin, his was a path of continual dialogue with both tradition and revolt. His archive—partially unpublished and still awaiting fuller digitization—remains a trove for historians and curators, promising fresh perspectives on the evolution of video art, performance, and interdisciplinary strategies in contemporary art.

What, then, is Mike Steiner’s enduring relevance? His legacy lies in asserting that art is not a matter of medium, but of mindset: a refusal to settle for established boundaries, a drive to provide new stages and platforms for others, and a tireless reimagining of how art meets audience. For anyone passionate about contemporary art, exploring Steiner’s universe—his abstract paintings, video installations, and collaborative actions—offers lessons in both the risks and the rewards of true artistic freedom.

For those eager to delve deeper, the official Mike Steiner website provides essential resources, rare images, and extensive documentation. Whether you seek inspiration, research material, or the pure pleasure of discovery, Steiner’s world is well worth a visit.