Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Last Book Sale

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

Giant Steps

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

German-born Artist Doerte Weber Builds ‘Checkpoint Carlos’ on the Rio Grande

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Wall Flowers

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Lives in Limbo

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Clothes that Make the Man

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Great Mellowing

At Home in the World (Prince Varughese Thomas)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

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

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

The Catastrophe Guru

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Wonderful World of Bluth

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

No Gogh!

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Library?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Image in the 21st Century

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Steve Jobs of West Texas