Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Image in the 21st Century

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Dario Robleto artist profile

Lives in Limbo

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Last Book Sale

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

No Gogh!

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Wall Flowers

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Unveiling “Austin”

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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?

The Clothes that Make the Man

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Great Mellowing

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Giant Steps

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

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

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?