Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Unveiling “Austin”

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No Gogh!

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Lives in Limbo

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Image in the 21st Century

Dario Robleto artist profile

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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?

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Mellowing

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Giant Steps

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Catastrophe Guru

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Library?

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

The Last Book Sale

Wall Flowers

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books