Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

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

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Great Mellowing

The Clothes that Make the Man

What Will Become of the Library?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Wall Flowers

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Lives in Limbo

The Image in the 21st Century

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Last Book Sale

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Dario Robleto artist profile

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Catastrophe Guru

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

No Gogh!

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

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

Giant Steps

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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