Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Dario Robleto artist profile

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Catastrophe Guru

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

The Last Book Sale

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Lives in Limbo

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Wall Flowers

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

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

What Will Become of the Library?

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Giant Steps

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Image in the 21st Century

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

No Gogh!

The Great Mellowing

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Unveiling “Austin”