Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

The Last Book Sale

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Clothes that Make the Man

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Great Mellowing

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Giant Steps

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Dario Robleto artist profile

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No Gogh!

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

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

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Wall Flowers

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Lives in Limbo

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Will Become of the Library?

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

The Image in the 21st Century

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Unveiling “Austin”

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

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