Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Wonderful World of Bluth

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

The Image in the 21st Century

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Great Mellowing

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Last Book Sale

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Catastrophe Guru

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

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

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Wall Flowers

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Lives in Limbo

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

Giant Steps

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

No Gogh!