Banca Rotta is a series of money changer’s tables from the 1600s that Goldin+Senneby have had sawn in half. The word bank derives from the Old Italian word for these tables, “banca” (comparable to bench in English). When a money changer in Florence went bankrupt, his trading table was destroyed — “banca” became “banca rotta,” broken bench.

First produced as part of the solo exhibition I dispense, divide, assign, keep hold at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein NAK (2013), with Ismail Ertürk (cultural economist), Pamela Carter (dramaturge), Anna Heymowska (set designer) and Hamadi Khemiri (actor). Curator: Dorothea Jendricke. Banca Rotta is in the collection of the Stockholm School of Economics since 2017.