Debbie Harry, James (White) Chance, Chris Stein, 1980

ROBERTA BAYLEY (B. 1950)
Debbie Harry, James (White) Chance, Chris Stein 1980
signed, titled, numbered 2/25 and dated 'Deborah Harry, James Chance, Chris Stein 1980 Roberta Bayley 2/25' (on the reverse)
cibachrome print
11 x 14 inches
executed in 1980
this piece is number 2 from an edition of 25.

Number 2 from an edition of 25, signed, titled, numbered and dated by Bayley on the reverse — a cibachrome print from 1980 capturing a moment that condensed the breadth of downtown New York's music scene into a single frame: Debbie Harry in a green blazer at the left, the no-wave saxophonist James Chance in red blazer, bow-tie and saxophone at the center, and Chris Stein with guitar at the right, the three of them standing against a wall layered with overlapping posters, photographs and tear sheets in someone's lived-in apartment. By 1980 Blondie were one of the most-watched acts on the planet — Parallel Lines had carried "Heart of Glass" to No. 1 the year before, and Autoamerican was about to do the same with "Call Me" and "The Tide Is High" — while James Chance, leading both Chance and the Contortions and his James White and the Blacks variation, sat at the center of the no-wave moment. The frame pulls together the punk-pop crossover end of the scene and its furthest avant-garde edge into a single image.