Lommetyven.no

Lommetyven (the pickpocket) is a social parasite, as well as an icon of subversion and activism. The pickpocket, by undermining established forms of capitalist activity and working tangentially to the accumulation of capital, performs important metaphoric, spatial, visual and economic work. 

This website is a gallery and a portal. The works on display are hand-made original prints produced by emerging Norwegian and Norway-based artists in small editions. The gallery emphasizes artists who have historically been marginalized or excluded from artistic and economic capital, such as those identifying as female and/or with ethnic or religious minorities. Works are available for purchase, but also for barter. The portal allows artists to exchange original work for goods and services, thereby bypassing those parts of the arts establishment that traditionally assign value and assume the majority of profits from trading in works of art. 

The frameworks of portal exchanges are negotiable, and, as in most barter economies, the value of both art objects and the goods/services they are exchanged for, are subjective and can be somewhat fluid.

There is a long history of bartering with art. Artists have been largely marginalized and, like pickpockets, are sometimes viewed as deadbeats and social parasites. 

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the financial reality of working as an artist remains as precarious as ever. 

The gallery is organized into a series of curated digital spaces, based on