Mike Steiner stands as a defining figure in contemporary art, merging avant-garde painting, video art, and performance. His legacy profoundly shaped Berlin’s artistic scene at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. With one foot firmly rooted in the expressive tradition of painting and the other reaching boldly into the emergent world of video and performance, Steiner forged a pathway in contemporary art that remains unrivaled to this day. His art unfolds as restlessly experimental, profoundly intermedial, and always a step ahead of his time.
From Painting to Video: Steiner’s Early Innovations
Emerging in Berlin’s postwar art scene, Mike Steiner’s journey began with painting, yet even his earliest work hinted at an impatience with boundaries. By 1959, he was already exhibiting at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, foreshadowing a restless career marked by innovation. Steiner’s studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste, under artists like Hans Jaenisch and Hans Kuhn, catalyzed this drive, as did his exposure to the international avant-garde-the likes of Robert Motherwell, Allan Kaprow, and Lil Picard in New York, all of whom inspired his growing fascination with new artistic media.
It was this blend of Central European tradition and the electric pulse of American movements-Fluxus, Performance, Happening-that guided Steiner as he crossed from abstract painting to video art. In the 1970s, Berlin was becoming a crucible for the new and unclassifiable in contemporary arts, and Mike Steiner stood at the center.
The Hotel Steiner and Studiogalerie: A Hub for the Avant-Garde
Through the legendary Hotel Steiner and his Studiogalerie, he not only made room for the avant-garde but actively shaped it-hosting and collaborating with visionaries such as Joseph Beuys, Valie Export, and Marina Abramovi?. These spaces operated like Berlin’s answer to New York’s Chelsea Hotel, alive with persisting ‘art conversations’, lasting from the early afternoon into the depths of night.
The Studiogalerie, established in 1974, redefined artistic production and patronage-serving as both a laboratory for video technology and an action space for ground-breaking performing arts. Here, Mike Steiner’s hallmark was his duality: equally a facilitator and a creator, he documented ephemeral performances that otherwise would have been lost to history. His own video works, co-created with Fluxus figure Al Hansen or capturing Ulay’s infamous intervention at the Neue Nationalgalerie (‘Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst’), became defining documents of their era. Experts particularly appreciate Steiner’s ability to marry spontaneous artistic action with the technical rigor of video recording-a trait that pointed to a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk.
Evolution of Steiner’s Artistic Language
Steiner’s artistic language was never static. As the 1980s unfolded, he delved into Super-8 film, photography, copy art, dia-series, and minimalist, hard-edge compositions. This period is marked by the ‘Painted Tapes’-a series of works fusing analog video with painterly gestures, extending his pursuit of bridging mediums. His collaboration with the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in Australia further blurred lines between audio, visual, and performative art. Award-winning videos like ‘Mojave Plan’ exemplify how Steiner saw electronic media as a continuation, not a rejection, of classical painting traditions. Unlike many contemporaries, his approach was not merely conceptual: Steiner remained deeply invested in visual phenomena-light, color, spatial relationships-qualities evident in his later abstract paintings from 2000 onward.
Critical Milestones and Lasting Legacy
Critical milestones punctuate Steiner’s career. His largest solo exhibition, ‘Color Works’, held at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in 1999, stands as a crowning affirmation by the contemporary art establishment. The holdings of the Hamburger Bahnhof now house a pivotal archive of Mike Steiner’s video art-a living testament to a creative life spent documenting, provoking, and expanding the limits of genre. Alongside video titans like Nam June Paik and Bill Viola, Steiner’s work and collection underscore Berlin’s unique contribution to the history of moving images. Notably, the breadth of his archive includes early documentation from Ulay, Marina Abramovi?, Richard Serra, and George Maciunas, making Steiner’s legacy central to the international exchange of artistic ideas.
It is impossible to ignore the philosophical undertone that runs through all of Steiner’s output. From early doubts about painting’s legitimacy to a passionate embrace of the camera, he continually sought new forms of artistic authenticity. Influenced by the radical openness of Fluxus and the performative tradition Allan Kaprow championed, Steiner’s work is characterized by a spirit of investigation and an ethical questioning of what art can be-or do. His fascination with the ephemeral, the live, and the unrepeatable led him to document rather than merely produce, to support other artists rather than isolate himself. In contrast to contemporaries such as Georg Baselitz or Joseph Beuys-both referenced in his circle-Steiner’s art is less about grand personal mythologies and more about the collaborative processes undergirding contemporary arts Berlin.
Steiner’s Multifaceted Impact and Enduring Relevance
Mike Steiner’s impact was multifaceted: as a painter, video artist, archivist, gallerist, and mentor. His journey from the informel painting of his youth, through video’s nascent days, to late abstract compositions and installations represents a rare continuity-a dedication to exploring the dynamics of image, space, and time. His Videogalerie TV format (1985-1990) brought video art into living rooms, while his extensive collection continues to inspire curators and artists alike.
What renders Mike Steiner so relevant to the present? His art invites viewers to consider not only the object but also its trace-the memory of an action, the technological mediations of experience, the social character of art-making. Each of his works, whether painting, video, or installation, gestures toward the unresolvable tension between permanence and ephemerality. His courage to experiment, champion new media, and open doors for others ensures his work continues to resonate in museums and studios across Berlin and beyond.
