Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

What Will Become of the Library?

Lives in Limbo

The Catastrophe Guru

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Giant Steps

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Last Book Sale

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Clothes that Make the Man

Wall Flowers

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

The Great Mellowing

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Image in the 21st Century

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

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

No Gogh!

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

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

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor