Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

“Trapped” in the Limelight

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Wonderful World of Bluth

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Wall Flowers

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Great Mellowing

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Robert Irwin in Marfa

No Gogh!

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Image in the 21st Century

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 Catastrophe Guru

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Giant Steps

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

The Last Book Sale

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Lives in Limbo

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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