Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Unveiling “Austin”

The Image in the 21st Century

No Gogh!

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Giant Steps

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Will Become of the Library?

Wall Flowers

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Last Book Sale

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

“Trapped” in the Limelight

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

The Great Mellowing

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Catastrophe Guru

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Lives in Limbo

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

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