Mike Steiner: Shaping Contemporary Art from Berlin – Fluxus, Video, and Painting Mastery

Mike Steiner. The name itself echoes in the history of contemporary art as a visionary who not only witnessed but actively shaped the transformation of cultural practices in Berlin and beyond. When you step into the world of Mike Steiner, you enter a dynamic dialogue with time, media, and radical ideas – where boundaries blur between painting, performance, and video.

What does it mean for an artist to truly challenge conventions between image and action, between heritage and avant-garde? This question seems omnipresent when encountering the deeply interdisciplinary oeuvre of Mike Steiner. His output, sprawling across six decades, is not one linear passage but an exhilarating succession of experiments at the cusp of contemporary arts in Berlin and far beyond.

Explore contemporary art by Mike Steiner and uncover his tapes, paintings, and performances here

To understand Mike Steiner is to witness the evolution of contemporary art itself: from abstract paintings rooted in postwar European traditions, through the wild energies of the Fluxus scene, to pioneering video art that fundamentally altered how we perceive and document performance. Throughout, Steiner was not just artist but host, activist, and collector, catalysing entire movements from his famous Hotel Steiner and Studiogalerie in Berlin. These venues grew into melting pots for performance art, international artists, and new media exploration – Berlin’s living answer to New York’s Chelsea Hotel in the 1970s.

Steiner’s strongest creative assertion perhaps lies in his versatility. His early years pulse with abstract painting. The 1959 still life already hints at an openness to materiality and form later seen in his subsequent works. Soon after, international travels and immersion in the cultural ferment of early-60s New York led Steiner to mingle with luminaries such as Lil Picard, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Motherwell. The bubbling cross-pollination of German postwar artists like Georg Baselitz and Karl Horst Hödicke with New York’s Happenings and Pop Art became a formative incubator for Steiner’s unique voice.

But it was a return to Berlin and the rise of Fluxus and performance that propelled him to embrace the new medium of video. Feeling the constraints of traditional painting, Steiner’s "legitimation crisis" saw him doubt brush and canvas in favor of the electronic image – a move echoing contemporaries like Nam June Paik and Bruce Nauman, yet uniquely filtered through his own painter’s sensibility. In studios like Florence’s Art/Tapes/22, and under the sway of figures such as Allan Kaprow and Al Hansen, Steiner’s first video works emerged in 1974. Soon, he would pioneer, both as artist and as a key collector, the video as art form.

His Studiogalerie, established in 1974, fast became Berlin’s nerve center for performance and video art. Here, artists like Valie Export, Marina Abramovi?, Jochen Gerz, and Carolee Schneemann found both laboratory and launchpad. Perhaps most emblematic is the 1976 collaborative action with Ulay, "Irritation – Da ist eine kriminelle Berührung in der Kunst," in the Neue Nationalgalerie, a bold intervention that underscored art’s capacity to subvert and provoke – all while being captured through Steiner’s video lens. Such works place Steiner in direct conversation with international peers, yet his contribution is distinctly Berlin: raw, experimental, collaborative.

Meanwhile, Steiner was never content to merely produce; he made his spaces vehicles for other artists. Hotel Steiner became a hub for travelers like Joseph Beuys and Arthur Køpcke. The Studiogalerie offered precious (and expensive) video equipment to up-and-coming artists, fostering a DIY ethos years ahead of its time. This leadership mirrors the curatorial engagement of German contemporaries like Wulf Herzogenrath in Cologne, but with a more hands-on, artist-driven ethos.

What truly sets Steiner apart is the scale of his engagement with time-based media. The late 1970s and 1980s saw him build an expansive collection of video art – now a touchstone in art history, partially housed within the venerable Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Here, his own works and those of others – Ulay, Abramovi?, Bill Viola, Richard Serra, and Gary Hill, to name but a few – remain central to any discussion of video in contemporary art. His largest solo exhibition, "Color Works 1995–98" at Hamburger Bahnhof in 1999, celebrated not only Steiner’s cross-genre creativity but also honored his legacy as a builder of archives and artistic communities.

Steiner’s Late Phase is equally compelling, marked by a return to abstraction and the development of the so-called “Painted Tapes,” fusing filmed material with painterly gesture. There is a persistent search for the unity of light, color, and rhythm – a dialogue of hand and machine, echoing pioneers like Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter in abstract painting while remaining entirely singular in approach.

Through different artistic periods, Mike Steiner’s embrace of experimentation never waned. Whether producing Super 8 film, in-depth photography, copy art, or installation, each project pushed the boundaries of what contemporary art could be in Germany and internationally. His role in creating (and then deconstructing) the very archive of video art has made him not just an artist but a steward of cultural memory, with his collection now an immensely valuable resource for researchers and audiences alike.

As a thinker and mediator, Steiner was unafraid to traverse genres: from “Berlin Video” programs in Riga, to televised broadcast with his innovative "Videogalerie" (1985-1990), he brought the moving image into the living rooms of the German public. As Joseph Beuys’s confidante and documentarist, as host and archivist, his impact quadrates with the likes of Marina Abramovi?, Vito Acconci, and Allan Kaprow – yet always through a Berlin perspective, grounded in the conditions and networks of contemporary arts Berlin.

After suffering a stroke in 2006, Steiner retreated more to his Berlin studio, focusing once more on abstract paintings and textile works, showing a continual urge to innovate even in later years. His legacy, sealed by the donation of his video archive to Hamburger Bahnhof and a series of posthumous exhibitions, remains vibrant and influential. The recent exhibitions and ongoing scholarly attention continue to cement his place in the pantheon of those who redefined contemporary art in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Today, revisiting Mike Steiner’s art means revisiting the energy of contemporary arts Berlin, the Fluxus movement, and the birth of video art. It means tracing the threads of collaboration, risk, and invention. The fruits of his restless search for the new – paintings, films, installations, and documentation – await viewers ready to be challenged, moved, and inspired.

For those seeking a deeper engagement, the official site of Mike Steiner hosts further insights into his biography, archives, and featured works. To experience the range of his abstract paintings and video installations, a visit is highly recommended. Let Mike Steiner’s unique vision of contemporary art unsettle and illuminate you – a legacy as lively as the Berlin he so loved.