Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Clothes that Make the Man

Dario Robleto artist profile

What Will Become of the Library?

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

No Gogh!

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Unveiling “Austin”

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Lives in Limbo

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Catastrophe Guru

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

“Trapped” in the Limelight

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Wall Flowers

Giant Steps

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

The Great Mellowing

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Image in the 21st Century

The Last Book Sale

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

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

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