Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Catastrophe Guru

No Gogh!

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Welcome to Texas, Elon

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Image in the 21st Century

What Will Become of the Library?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Giant Steps

The Great Mellowing

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Wall Flowers

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

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Last Book Sale

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Lives in Limbo

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Unveiling “Austin”