Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Giant Steps

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Unveiling “Austin”

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Image in the 21st Century

No Gogh!

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Robert Irwin in Marfa

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

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

Wall Flowers

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Catastrophe Guru

The Great Mellowing

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Last Book Sale

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Lives in Limbo

What Will Become of the Library?

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters