Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Catastrophe Guru

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

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

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

Giant Steps

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Welcome to Texas, Elon

“Trapped” in the Limelight

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Great Mellowing

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

What Will Become of the Library?

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

The Last Book Sale

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Lives in Limbo

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Wall Flowers

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Unveiling “Austin”

The Image in the 21st Century

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

No Gogh!

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Wonderful World of Bluth