Mike Steiner (1941-2012) studied painting at the Berlin University of the Arts and first travelled to New York for two years in 1965. There he was deeply impressed by the local art scene with its experimental tendencies such as minimal art, happening, performance and video art. Thus he became one of the pioneers of German video art in the early 1970s. With his "Painted Tapes" he promoted a new aesthetic of seeing. He founded the artists' hotel "Hotel Steiner" and the "Studiogalerie" near the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, where he showed exhibitions of important protagonists of international video and performance art such as Joseph Beuys, Laurie Anderson, Allan Kaprow, Bill Viola and Valie Export. In his own video works he documented important performances, among others by Marina Abramovic and Ulay. In the 1990s, Steiner also returned to painting and made colour his most important means of expression. This group of works was honoured in 1999 with the exhibition "Color Works" at the Hamburger Bahnhof. .

Mike Steiner: Color Works. 1995-1998. Berlin, Nationalgalerie im Hamburg Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, 1999, ill. p. 213