Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Catastrophe Guru

No Gogh!

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

The Image in the 21st Century

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Last Book Sale

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Clothes that Make the Man

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Wall Flowers

Unveiling “Austin”

Lives in Limbo

The Great Mellowing

What Will Become of the Library?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Giant Steps

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Dario Robleto artist profile

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

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