Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Clothes that Make the Man

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

Wall Flowers

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

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Lives in Limbo

The Image in the 21st Century

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Great Mellowing

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Unveiling “Austin”

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Last Book Sale

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

No Gogh!

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Giant Steps

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

What Will Become of the Library?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard