Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Unveiling “Austin”

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Last Book Sale

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

The Image in the 21st Century

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

What Will Become of the Library?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Wall Flowers

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Giant Steps

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Great Mellowing

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

No Gogh!

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Lives in Limbo

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

“Trapped” in the Limelight