Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Last Book Sale

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Image in the 21st Century

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Unveiling “Austin”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Dario Robleto artist profile

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

“Trapped” in the Limelight

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Will Become of the Library?

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Lives in Limbo

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

Wall Flowers

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Giant Steps

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

No Gogh!

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Great Mellowing