Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Lives in Limbo

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Last Book Sale

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Giant Steps

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Wall Flowers

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Image in the 21st Century

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

No Gogh!

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Unveiling “Austin”

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Great Mellowing

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

What Will Become of the Library?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Catastrophe Guru

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge