Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Last Book Sale

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Great Mellowing

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Welcome to Texas, Elon

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Wall Flowers

Unveiling “Austin”

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Image in the 21st Century

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Lives in Limbo

The Catastrophe Guru

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

No Gogh!

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Giant Steps