ABOUT

TOM GARRETSON is a multidisciplinary American/Norwegian artist working in the fields of art photography, music, writing and performance internationally while being based in Norway.


In the late 1970s as a teenager he was active as a writer and photographer and participated in performance art works with friends from the nightclub scene of Max’s Kansas City and CBGBs, becoming influenced by the number of musicians, writers and artists he met there.


He received his education in Musicology/Music Composition, and Poetic Drama at New York University, and studied Jazz Guitar at Loyola School of Music in New Orleans. He holds a degree in Art Photography from the Oslo School of Art Photography and two BA’s in Musicology and Art History from the University of Oslo, as well as a Master’s Degree in Art History. His thesis was titled "Dancing on the Abyss: George Grosz, Otto Dix, Christian Schad and the Influence of Cabaret Culture."


As a writer, he has written for books and magazines in the US and in Norway. In 2023 he completed co-authoring the play “Marquesa” with artist Lydia Lunch, which he also authored the lyrics and composed the music for, receiving two prestigious arts grants from the Arts Council Norway (for writing and for composing). In 2018 he authored a text on Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Seven Deadly Sins for the mezzosoprano Tora Augestad’s recording which won the Norwegian Grammy for Best Classical Recording that year. He was also a regular contributor of writing and photography to Paraphilia Magazine (USA and UK) from 2008 to 2013 and has written and photographed for Staging Decadence (Goldsmith’s University, London), Blikk, Banzai Magazine, and other publications. Currently he is finishing his first novel, scheduled to be completed in 2024.


His photography has been published in many magazines, newspapers and books in the USA, the UK and Norway. Most recently his photographs of Lydia Lunch were featured in the French television series Vernon Subutex, written by Virginie Despentes, and also in Pleading the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (Intellect Books Ltd., 2013), The Gun Is Loaded (2008) by Lydia Lunch, and No Wave by Marc Masters (2007), both published by Black Dog Publishing UK. He has exhibited in the USA, China and in Norway in solo and group exhibitions of art photography, also mixing performance art with photography and involving the public as active performers in his works. His photographing of transvestites was featured in the first episode of NRK National TV's Jentene Fra Toten (The Girls from Toten) in 2010.


In 2008 he recorded, composed and produced the CD “Love Art Lab” with Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens, and also performed with the couple at the European Cultural Capital in Norway in a performance that was scandalized by the tabloid press. In 2009 he was asked to join Sprinkle and Stephens at the Venice Biennale, where he performed his own work “Burning Lights”. As an actor, writer and performer he has appeared in his own avant-garde performances such as the AlterPorn Cabaret in Oslo, and in numerous Edward Weiss Off-Broadway theatre plays in New York. He has also performed his own dramatic poetry performances in the US, Norway and Italy. In 2012 he played the part of "Diablo" in A Short Film About Incompetence directed by Matt Willis-Jones. He has also lectured at the University of Chicago in Paris in 2015 on “Art Versus Commerce: The Struggle for Artistic Independence”, and again in 2017 on “Berlin Cabaret is at the Heart of Transgression”, for theirTransgressive Cultures Conference, where he also presented his paper "On Reading Sade" and premiered his short film, "A Baroque Grotesque." He also appeared that year on NRK P2 National Radio discussing Berlin cabaret as an art form.


Also in 2009, he collaborated with the Iranian art photographer Adel Bonakdarpour under the moniker of Phototerroristas,in a work titled US THEM, using photography and performance to explore terrorism, the work of Dr. Stanley Milgram, and negative categorization and objectification in juxtaposed photographic images with confrontational, manipulative behavior. In 2011, he completed a three-year "Exquisite Corpse" art photography project titled On Pleasure withLydia Lunch and the Chinese artist Joyce Lui Ying. In 2012, he performed a photographic performance art piece in his solo art exhibition at the Galleri Lyshuset, in Norway, titled Name Your Poison. In 2019 his solo art photography exhibition titled Baroque Grotesque featured at Galleri Schaeffersgt. 5 in Oslo, Norway.




AS AN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL

 

Garretson’s first employment was at the age of 18 in 1981, being employed by the alternative recording company MAI AS.   There he began to work with sales of albums and singles, and soon branched into learning marketing and promotion.  There, he was given responsibility of promotion for underground punk bands and labels, such as the English Rough Trade, Factory, Two Tone and Greensleeves labels.

 

From 1990 to 2004 he returned to work in the music industry after living in New York, gaining extensive professional experience as a producer, director, and as a consultant in marketing and promotion. He has been employed by PolyGram to head the labels Verve Jazz and Phillips Classics in Norway, bringing both labels into profit for the first time in that company's history; as Label Director for Sony Music he oversaw Columbia Jazz and Sony Classics in Norway and was responsible for the promotion and marketing of Christmas in Vienna III, which became the second best selling album of its release year; as a live event producer for NGM Ltd (London and Oslo) producing stadium concerts, musicals, and tours with internationally renowned classical and jazz musicians and singers such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Shirley Bassey, among many others.

 

In 1998 he formed his own creative arts and management company WildStar World with the intention of using his considerable professional experience in marketing, promotion and contracting, in the interest of furthering his own and other artists' artistic endeavors. His first signing to his company was in the management of acclaimed artist Lydia Lunch, whom he continues to have a close association with today. He also managed the jazz singer Silje Nergaard's career, raising her status from "a dead artist" in the industry to becoming the best-selling pop-jazz artist in Norway, and the no. 2 best-selling jazz artist in Europe, after obtaining a recording contract for her with Universal Music. Universal Music also hired him as an independent promotion and marketing expert, resulting in three consecutive no. 1, platinum-selling albums for that artist. He also booked national and international touring for Nergaard, traveling to Asian countries and also spent three weeks in Germany for a National Representation Tour with the Crown Prince of Norway, HRM Prince Haakon, hired by the Foreign Service (Utenriksdepartement) in Norway to produce the tour in 2002. In 2004, he decided to take a pause from the music industry and devote his time to university studies and to focus on his own creative works.  During this period he worked as a freelance producer and also as a teacher of photography, while simultaeously continuing to manage Lydia Lunch.

 

In 2018 he set up his company Guttersaint, as a comprehensive arts and production company in which he continues to work as a freelance consultant and producer.  He also continues his personal and business management for the artist Lydia Lunch, going on 23 years of association with her.   Together they have created a new form of artist-management relationship, defying industry standards and succeeding by doing so.   His handling of the sale of Lunch’s archives to New York University garnered international media attention, and he continues to work with clients in archive sales or other creative business areas.