Frezno

“I love this book. It’s all in here and the heart of it is Tony’s big true eye. He got it . . . the oddness, meanness, beauty and soul of this sad hilarious fractured place. Viva Fresno.”—Terry Allen

The central California teenage wasteland is the bane of its inhabitants and the butt of a thousand late night TV jokes. It comes in next to dead last in surveys of cities with a high quality of life.

Though it’s one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the country, with a large population of Basques, Hispanics, African Americans, Vietnamese, and Armenians, Fresno is also a killing capitol, home to low-riding cholos, empty buildings, and dope drops. It is also the birthplace of the lauded young photographer Tony Stamolis, whose fascination with his strange hometown provides a disturbing, hilarious, and poignant insider’s view of post-suburban American badlands and its inhabitants.

Tony Stamolis exhibits in New York; Los Angeles; Marfa, Texas; and overseas. His work also appears in The New York Times, RollingStone, Maxim, Urb, Nerve, Giant, Mass Appeal, Flaunt, and Black Book.

Stamolis has published in Rolling Stone, Maxim, New York Times, Mass Appeal, Nerve and many other publications. His 2008 exhibitions will include New York (ClampArt), Los Angeles (M+B) and Marfa (Galleri Urbane). He was born in Fresno in 1970. Terry Allen, a progenitor of the alt-country movement, is an outlaw country singer, painter and conceptual artist who collaborated with David Byrne on the soundtack for the movie True Stories.