Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

No Gogh!

Houston Photo Exhibit Documents First Markers of Modern U.S.-Mexico Border

The Image in the 21st Century

Giant Steps

Unveiling “Austin”

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Dario Robleto artist profile

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The People’s Champion (Vincent Valdez’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’)

Luz Maria Sanchez: Narco Violence, as Seen by a Journalist-Turned-Artist

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Brutally Suppressed in Her Lifetime, Gertrude Beasley Is Finally on Our Bookshelves

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Wall Flowers

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Last Book Sale

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Catastrophe Guru

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Sedrick Huckaby Looks His Subjects in the Eye, from Dreamers to an Ex-President

The ‘Moby Dick’ of Texas Football Novels Is Hard-hitting as Ever

Houston’s National Women’s Conference, 40 Years Later

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

While We Were Sleeping: The Feds Say a Price-fixing Scheme Costs Texas Patients Tens of Millions

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Psychedelic State of South Texas (Fernando A. Flores)

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

EAST Austin Is Over. What’s Next for an Art Scene That’s Losing Its Nucleus?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small-scale Wind Power?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Clothes that Make the Man

Lives in Limbo

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No Sign of Trump’s “Millions” of Illegal Voters in Texas

What Will Become of the Library?

The Great Mellowing

Did Texas Blackouts Reveal Austin’s New Real-Estate Hot Spots?