Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Last Book Sale

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Wall Flowers

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Giant Steps

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Unveiling “Austin”

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Image in the 21st Century

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Great Mellowing

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

No Gogh!

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Clothes that Make the Man

Lives in Limbo

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?