Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

“Trapped” in the Limelight

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

Lives in Limbo

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

No Gogh!

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Great Mellowing

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Image in the 21st Century

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Last Book Sale

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Unveiling “Austin”

Giant Steps

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Catastrophe Guru

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Wall Flowers