Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Great Mellowing

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Wall Flowers

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

No Gogh!

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Catastrophe Guru

The Image in the 21st Century

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

What Will Become of the Library?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Clothes that Make the Man

Dario Robleto artist profile

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Giant Steps

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Lives in Limbo

The Last Book Sale

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Robert Irwin in Marfa

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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