A few days ago I mentioned that there was a display of classic Blondie photographs being displayed at the Chelsea Storefront Gallery only a few feet down from the Hotel Chelsea. It is a part of the Blondie 40th Anniversary Celebration and the exhibit features photos by guitarist Chris Stein, Mark Gruen, Mick Rock, Mark Weiss and more. Since I only had today to see this since it was ending at 8:00pm on the night I was out in the city, I made sure to get over to the gallery. I was heading to the headlining show by Otherwise at The Studio at Webster Hall a little later so this was a perfect additional adventure to partake in.

I’ve handled this in the similar fashion to other narratives of this kind and that means only a little bit of dialogue from me and mostly photos for you to enjoy. Let’s get this party started with the first thing visitors see when they enter the gallery. I’ll talk more about this one at the end of the piece so stick with me.

The signage on the wall next to these photographs noted that they were done by both Mick Rock and Annie Leibovitz.

This next batch hail from the great Bob Gruen. Gruen has a number of photography books out there and I’ve shared narratives about them on PiercingMetal.com in our Book Reviews area. Go check them out when you have some time. Right now let’s enjoy the work he did that featured Blondie. I took second shots of the ones that I liked the most and did more close ups of them. Trust me these little images do NOT do the works justice.

These images come care of Mark Weiss and Robert Maplethorpe.

These next group of images appear to have been done by Roberta Bayley.

Now its time to get to the photos that were taken by Chris Stein himself. These were all great of course but I was primarily here to see the guitarists work.

There were two glass cases that held pieces of memorabilia that belonged to Debbie Harry herself. I loved all the “All Access” and “Band” laminates – It’s awesome that Debbie has all of these and let them be displayed in the gallery for this presentation.

Hung around the rafters of the Gallery space were numerous shirts that belonged to Harry. Some of these were very cool. I guess that the singer sported these during shows or in photo shoots over the years.

In the rear of the gallery space there were a few pieces of fan art set up. I liked these very much as well. The one in grey is simply fantastic.

No presentation of Rock and Roll Royalty would be complete without some merchandise to purchase. They had copies of Steins book and the latest CD by Blondie. It appears to be an album of her classics redone by the band in today’s world. These kinds of things are appearing more and more I am noticing.

Here are some words from Chris Stein and Debbie Harry. I hope that you can read them.

There was a massive sheet of poster board hung on the wall for the visitors to the Gallery to sign and I made sure to leave my own message and of course mention that a Metal site had dropped in to give a salute.

The gallery was encouraging that visitors posed in front of the big Blondie mural at the front of the venue. They were using Twitter and obviously Instagram so I made sure to do it as well. If you are already following my account then you probably saw it breeze by in your feed. If not, now is the time to follow me @PiercingMetal so you don’t miss out on this kind of stuff.

This is the mural. Perhaps you out of town readers who are super clever in Photoshop can add yourself to the image and do the same thing. Whatever works for you.

Now for the good, no, Great News. When I was talking to the staff onsite about this being the final day and asking how it was received, he said that it was decided only hours before my arrival to extend this showing for another week. Now more of you have a chance on checking this out if you are able to. I highly recommend it and thank Chris Stein and all the other photographs for sharing their wonderful images with the rest of us.

I hope that you enjoyed this presentation as much as I enjoyed bringing it to your attention. Now for some links.

Official Website: http://www.blondie.net/
Official Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1485527328372912/