Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Clothes that Make the Man

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Lives in Limbo

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Last Book Sale

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Giant Steps

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

Wall Flowers

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Library?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Image in the 21st Century

Robert Irwin in Marfa

No Gogh!

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Great Mellowing

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

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

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.