Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Giant Steps

Unveiling “Austin”

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Image in the 21st Century

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Wall Flowers

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Last Book Sale

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Great Mellowing

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Will Become of the Library?

The Catastrophe Guru

Lives in Limbo

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

No Gogh!

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?