Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Image in the 21st Century

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Wall Flowers

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

No Gogh!

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Giant Steps

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Dario Robleto artist profile

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

The Catastrophe Guru

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Unveiling “Austin”

Lives in Limbo

The Last Book Sale

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Great Mellowing

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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