Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Image in the 21st Century

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Will Become of the Library?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Great Mellowing

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Giant Steps

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

No Gogh!

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Unveiling “Austin”

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Wall Flowers

The Last Book Sale

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Lives in Limbo

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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