The Protest That Sparked a Shift
In October 2018, participants of Salzburg Global’s Cultural Innovators Forum staged a protest in the Venetian Salon, raising concerns about depictions of Arlecchino they felt echoed the imagery of blackface.
Posters were taped to the historic panels, calling attention to how these artworks could be interpreted as racially offensive.
Though anonymous, the protest prompted a major institutional awakening at Salzburg Global about how different communities experience this space and its layered history.
From Discomfort to Dialogue
The protest revealed a disconnect between how Salzburg Global understood the Schloss and how Fellows were experiencing it.
This moment challenged long-held assumptions and inspired the organization to reflect more critically on the stories embedded in the building’s design.
It also reinforced the need for inclusive dialogue, historical transparency, and deeper engagement with the meaning of cultural symbols across time.
Listening, Learning, Evolving
The years following the protest brought with them a growing awareness that diversity, equity, and inclusion must be embedded not just in programming, but in place, culture, and practice.
Through facilitated dialogue, external consultation, and internal review, Salzburg Global began to address gaps in representation and responsiveness.
Critical feedback—especially from Fellows—helped highlight where intentions fell short, where inclusion felt incidental rather than strategic, and where historic assumptions needed to be challenged.
This process is ongoing, recognizing that many voices and generations shape institutional evolution.
Values in Action
In 2021, Salzburg Global adopted four institutional values to guide its path forward: Welcoming, Exchange, Fairness, and Transformation.
These values underpin how programs are designed, how guests are hosted, and how the evolving story of the Schloss is told.
From curating more inclusive visual narratives to ensuring physical accessibility and cultural relevance, Salzburg Global seeks to layer new meaning onto this historic space.
These values also inform a place-based DEI strategy—committed to openness, transparency, and continuous reflection on what it means to belong here, now and in the future.
A Living Response Through Curation
In response to the Venetian Salon protest, Salzburg Global began a comprehensive review of the Schloss’s cultural heritage—consulting Fellows, curators, and experts from around the world.
Rather than remove historic elements, the approach has been to add new layers: explanatory signage, rotating exhibitions, and artworks by diverse Fellows.
These efforts aim to ensure that the Schloss becomes a more inclusive space that invites reflection, not erasure, and centers evolving perspectives in its ongoing story.
The Mask as Metaphor
In Commedia dell’arte, masks allowed actors to take on new identities, revealing deeper truths about the human condition. Drawing inspiration from this tradition, the “Masking the Venetian Salon” project uses translucent fabric to partially cover several paintings in which Arlecchino features.
This partial covering is not an act of erasure, but a gesture of reflection—an invitation to consider what is shown, what is hidden, and what stories we choose to foreground. The room becomes a stage for multiple narratives to coexist.
Unmasking Arlecchino: Origins and Interpretations
Arlecchino, a stock character from 16th-century Italian Commedia dell’arte, is traditionally depicted with a colorful patchwork costume and a black half-mask or soot-darkened face.
Originally, this may have signified his peasant background, links to medieval folklore, or demonic trickster archetypes. Arlecchino’s mask was a theatrical tool that allowed actors to transform identity and satirize authority.
When Max Reinhardt installed Venetian panels in this room in 1930, he did so out of deep admiration for the artistic and political legacy of Commedia dell’arte, which he saw as a precursor to modern theater.
Between Performance and Prejudice
In British pantomime, Arlecchino was paired with characters like Colombina and became part of stylized performances that began to echo racialized stereotypes.
In 19th-century America, minstrel shows co-opted these forms, incorporating darkened masks, slapstick humor, and exaggerated dialects to ridicule Black people.
Scholars now point to the visual and thematic parallels between Commedia characters like Arlecchino and minstrel archetypes, including the “Black Fool” or “Jim Crow” figure.
While Arlecchino’s origin may not have been explicitly racist, his theatrical afterlife intersects with histories of colonialism, slavery, and systemic racism in performance.
Confronting this complexity is essential for institutions that house such imagery—and for audiences seeking a deeper understanding of how comedy, caricature, and culture intertwine.
Legacy in Layers: Arlecchino Through Time
Today, Arlecchino’s darkened face raises urgent questions about legacy, interpretation, and inclusion.
The historical entanglement between theatrical masking and racial stereotyping cannot be ignored, especially in a setting that now hosts global leaders, artists, and changemakers. For some viewers, these images evoke pain, exclusion, or offense.
For institutions like Salzburg Global, confronting these layered histories is not about denying the past but engaging with it honestly. Arlecchino’s journey—from satirical rebel to a figure linked with blackface—reminds us that cultural symbols carry weight, and how we display them matters.