Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

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

Lives in Limbo

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Great Mellowing

No Gogh!

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Image in the 21st Century

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Clothes that Make the Man

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Dario Robleto artist profile

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Catastrophe Guru

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

The Last Book Sale

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

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

Giant Steps

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

Unveiling “Austin”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Wall Flowers

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Library?