Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Last Book Sale

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Unveiling “Austin”

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Wall Flowers

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What Will Become of the Library?

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Image in the 21st Century

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Catastrophe Guru

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

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

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Dario Robleto artist profile

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Great Mellowing

The Clothes that Make the Man

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

No Gogh!

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Lives in Limbo

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Giant Steps

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

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

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

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

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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