Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Catastrophe Guru

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Last Book Sale

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

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Clothes that Make the Man

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Lives in Limbo

The Great Mellowing

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Giant Steps

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

No Gogh!

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Wall Flowers

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

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

The Image in the 21st Century