Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Great Mellowing

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

What Will Become of the Library?

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Wall Flowers

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

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

No Gogh!

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Dario Robleto artist profile

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Image in the 21st Century

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

The Last Book Sale

Giant Steps

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Lives in Limbo

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?