Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Unveiling “Austin”

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Catastrophe Guru

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

No Gogh!

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

The Last Book Sale

The Wonderful World of Bluth

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Image in the 21st Century

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Mellowing

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Giant Steps

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Lives in Limbo

Wall Flowers

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge