16–18 October 2025 will see the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM) celebrate 50 years of existence. Reason enough to pop the corks, recall our department’s beginnings, reflect upon developments since then, and conceive of perspectives for the future!
How it all began…
Back in 1975, when the IKM was established as the “Department of Cultural Management, Artistic Management, and Public Relations” at the then-Academy (Hochschule) of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, it was not only the first department of its kind in the German-speaking region but also one of Europe’s very first places of academic training in cultural management. The underlying initiative had originated chiefly with Ernst Haeusserman and Marcel Prawy, both of whom felt that a training programme in “cultural management” was needed. In this regard, Haeusserman spoke of his “uneasiness about how decision-makers at arts institutions are either pure artists with none or only few of the necessary management-relevant attributes or pure managers who are interchangeable with the managers of industrial and/or commercial enterprises”. (Ernst Haeusserman)
The IKM’s Founding Figures
Ernst Haeusserman (1916–1984) was a true all-rounder, as one would say nowadays: he was an actor, a theatre director, a professor at the Film Academy, a member of the Salzburg Festival’s directorial team, and a forward thinker where cultural management was concerned. He had come to believe that just as management professionals were beginning to discover the arts as a welcome domain of work, the arts world’s increasing economisation was calling for a new job description: that of the cultural manager. Haeusserman had a sense of how to satisfy this putative need and knew how contemplation of cultural policy-related matters could be cleverly combined with the impartation of organisational and managerial competencies. Thanks to his leadership, the department was and continues to be conceived of as a place in which to combine theory and practice, management and the arts, reflection and conceptual work. Those who were around back then recall how Haeusserman would often go about his own cultural management work sitting at one of his regular cafés, red telephone in hand. That red telephone can be thought of as synonymous with his idea of cultural management—which, in 2025, is more current than ever: bringing the arts and culture to audiences requires critical and communicative individuals who act not simply as “managers” but also as mediators between the arts, institutions, and the public.
Marcel Prawy (1911–2003), whom boomers and still older generations in Austria still remember vividly as an opera expert, as head dramaturge of the Vienna State Opera, and as an ORF cult figure, was a passionate cultural mediator. With his unmistakable style, ardent accumulation of plastic bags for his fine-tuned personal music-organising system, and ability to explain complex musical phenomena, he reached all manner of audience segments. As a dramaturge and as a lecturer at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts, he was a brilliant storyteller and opera expert who integrated his experiences and knowledge from the musical world and its media into his teaching and inspired generations of students with his sense of humour. With his charisma and expertise, Prawy embodied a cultural mediation institution in Vienna.
The department founded by Haeusserman and Prawy was a place of experimentation from the very beginning, a centre of critical thinking about the arts and culture where much discussion (and smoke) filled the air. The department also soon took on Europe-wide significance thanks to the cultural management certificate programme launched by its two founding figures in 1976.
The IKM Today
The IKM—now renamed as the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies, headed since 2024 by the cultural management professor Dagmar Abfalter, and also now home to further professorships in gender studies, cultural institutions studies, and cultural studies—has grown into a truly transdisciplinary place. With its postgraduate programme in cultural management, establishment of gender studies at the mdw, implementation of the International Research Center – Gender and Performativity, and transversal research emphases in cultural studies, cultural institutions studies, cultural management, and cultural policy plus the Advanced Studies in Applied Dramaturgy in Music and Performing Arts programme (currently being phased out), the IKM has placed its focus firmly on the arts, culture, and research in the context of socio-political and practice-relevant discourses. Particularly in recent decades, it has established itself as a department that pursues theoretical research pertaining to cultural institutions studies, cultural studies, and the social dimensions of the arts and culture in a globalised context, zeroing in on cultural policy questions concerning inequalities and the criticism of power dynamics. In the future, as well, the IKM will be taking up socially critical perspectives on the artistic and cultural landscape, opening up new fields of research, and further developing innovative teaching formats.
The IKM team is aware of how the coming years will bring with them great challenges, above all in terms of digital transformation, social justice, economic dependencies, and the role of the arts in a globalised and crisis-wracked world. In this spirit: let’s take on the answers, let’s ask new questions, and let’s all celebrate together!
reConnect mdw – Alumni Festival
Sat., 11–Sun., 19 October
Workshops, discussions, concerts, backstage tours, and much more
The IKM Turns 50 – A Celebration!
During the Alumni Festival, the mdw Campus will witness a multifaceted event series from Thurs., 16 October to Sat., 18 October that will mark 50 years of the Department of Cultural Management and 20 years since the establishment of its gender studies focus: book presentations, film screenings, and a party line-up will highlight the development of the cultural management and gender studies fields at the mdw, key individuals connected with the department will be honoured, and we’ll all celebrate together!
