Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Lives in Limbo

The Wonderful World of Bluth

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Last Book Sale

The Catastrophe Guru

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Wall Flowers

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Robert Irwin in Marfa

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

Giant Steps

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Clothes that Make the Man

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Unveiling “Austin”

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Image in the 21st Century

No Gogh!

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

The Great Mellowing

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

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0