Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Last Book Sale

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

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

Wall Flowers

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

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

What Will Become of the Library?

The Clothes that Make the Man

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

No Gogh!

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Unveiling “Austin”

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

“Trapped” in the Limelight

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Great Mellowing

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Lives in Limbo

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Image in the 21st Century

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

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Giant Steps

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

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

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure