Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

No Gogh!

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Clothes that Make the Man

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Wall Flowers

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Great Mellowing

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

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

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

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

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Library?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Unveiling “Austin”

The Catastrophe Guru

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Last Book Sale

The Image in the 21st Century

Lives in Limbo

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Giant Steps

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?