Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

What Will Become of the Library?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Great Mellowing

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Catastrophe Guru

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Dario Robleto artist profile

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Last Book Sale

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Giant Steps

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

The Image in the 21st Century

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

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

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Clothes that Make the Man

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

No Gogh!

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Lives in Limbo

Wall Flowers

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure