Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Wall Flowers

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Catastrophe Guru

Lives in Limbo

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

The Last Book Sale

No Gogh!

Giant Steps

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Image in the 21st Century

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Mellowing

What Will Become of the Library?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Clothes that Make the Man