Mike Steiner – A Visionary Force in Contemporary Art and Video Avant-Garde

To experience contemporary art in all its uncompromising boldness is to encounter the work of Mike Steiner. He stands not merely as an artist but as a catalyst—one who dissolved the walls between media, genres, and cultural climates. His oeuvre defies reduction, spanning from vibrant abstract paintings to radical experiments in video art, and from the informal momentum of early Berlin canvases to the performative pulse of his legendary Studiogalerie. How, one is tempted to ask, does one redefine the space between painting and moving image? Mike Steiner’s life and work revolve around precisely this tension, forever seeking and forever resisting final answers.

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Steiner’s artistic journey began in post-war Berlin, his formative years spent among the city’s shifting bohemian enclaves. Early recognition came swiftly, as he exhibited at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung while barely seventeen. Yet his curiosity was insatiable; he soon sought inspiration in the heart of New York’s avant-garde. While immersed in the electric artistic ferment of the 1960s—studying under Hans Kuhn and networking with luminaries like Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Motherwell—Steiner developed a profound skepticism toward conventional painting, increasingly drawn to the experimental spirit driving the Performing Arts and Fluxus movements.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Steiner was not content to dwell solely within painting or even within personal creation. The scope of his contributions is perhaps best reflected in his pivotal role as both initiator and facilitator. His Hotel Steiner in Berlin-Kurfürstendamm became a nerve center for artists during the early 1970s, evoking the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York. Esteemed figures, including Joseph Beuys and Arthur Køpcke, found not just accommodation but a crucible for collaborative ideas, a distinctly Berlin answer to the ever-percolating New York scene.

It was precisely this urge to create spaces—physical, intellectual, medial—that led Steiner, in 1974, to found the Studiogalerie in Berlin’s Ludwigkirchstraße. Influenced by his Florentine sojourn at Maria Gloria Bicocchi’s Art/Tapes/22, Steiner established his Studiogalerie as a hub for video production, action art, and avant-garde encounters. Here, the pulse of Contemporary Arts Berlin beat most audibly: Valie Export’s feminist power, Jochen Gerz’s poetic interventions, Marina Abramovi?’s iconic "Freeing the Body," and Ulay’s notorious performative actions found place, documentation, and support thanks to Steiner—who often stood behind the camera himself.

This openness to the new, the fleeting, the performative marked Steiner as a pioneer of video art in Germany. He acquired his first art videotape by Reiner Ruthenbeck in 1974, laying the foundation for what would become one of the most comprehensive collections of video art in Europe—the Berlin Video and Sammlung Mike Steiner. The collection includes groundbreaking works by figures such as Richard Serra, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, and Gary Hill, mapping not only Steiner’s personal vision but also the rise of video and performance as central threads in 20th-century art.

Fascinating, too, is the technical and conceptual innovation that runs through Steiner’s own works. The "Painted Tapes" from the 1980s, for example, bridge the analogue vibrance of pigment with the flicker of magnetic tape, turning electronic means into extensions of painterly gesture. In collaboration with the legendary music group Tangerine Dream, he created atmospheric visual documentaries like "Mojave Plan"—epitomes of his versatility, blurring the line between image, movement, and music. This ability to shift styles and mediums—encompassing abstract paintings, video installations, Super-8 films, and photographic series—rivals that of contemporaries like Nam June Paik or Bruce Nauman, positioning Steiner uniquely within the canon of multimedia art.

The apex of recognition for Steiner’s studio-driven work arrived with the 1999 solo exhibition "Color Works" at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. This seminal event crystallized themes that had long defined his creative process: vibrant abstraction, the fusion of time and color, and a relentless pursuit of new forms. For many, the Hamburger Bahnhof exhibition solidified Steiner’s influence on both Berlin’s local creative landscape and the wider international conversation on contemporary art. Alongside titans such as Marina Abramovi? and Valie Export, Steiner’s works probe the possibilities of artistic media, encouraging viewers to witness not just objects but processes, transformations, and interventions.

Throughout his career, Steiner’s activities as curator, collector, and broadcaster further cemented his imprint. The "Videogalerie" TV format, which ran from 1985 to 1990, brought the experimental energy of the Contemporary Arts Berlin scene directly into German homes—a public platform echoing the pioneering initiatives of Gerry Schum or the vision of Harald Szeemann. His video and installation work was repeatedly exhibited in venues from Seoul and San Francisco to numerous Berlin institutions, yet always circled back to Steiner’s steadfast belief in art as a vehicle for encounter and questioning.

In his later years, Steiner devoted himself anew to painting, often delving into the vibrant realm of abstract compositions. The abstract paintings created from 2000 onward, along with textile works produced after a stroke in 2006, continue his lifelong negotiation with materiality, space, and the fleeting nature of perception. Works from this period evoke the emotional clarity of Color Field Painting, yet are uniquely rooted in Steiner’s history of experimentation and cross-pollination.

Underlying all these achievements is a distinctly personal philosophy: that art must always reach beyond itself, always interrogate its own limitations. Steiner’s willingness to place himself at the intersection of painting, video, performance, and installation reflects a dedication to art as an open, transformative process—a commitment echoed by many, yet matched by few. His legacy is visible not only in his collected works—now held at the Hamburger Bahnhof—but in the very forms and possibilities of artistic practice in Berlin and beyond.

Mike Steiner’s archive and its still largely undigitized treasures remain a testament to an era of artistic upheaval and optimism. For scholars, collectors, and art lovers alike, his work offers both historical insight and fresh inspiration. The urge to explore further—perhaps via the official artist’s website or through upcoming exhibitions—remains ever compelling. To understand contemporary art’s evolution in Berlin, to witness how one artist traced new maps of engagement and exchange, is to follow the enduring thread of Mike Steiner’s creative legacy.

Learn more about Mike Steiner and his impact on contemporary art on the official website