Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Robert Irwin in Marfa

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Unveiling “Austin”

Giant Steps

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

What Will Become of the Library?

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

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

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Great Mellowing

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

No Gogh!

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

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Image in the 21st Century

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Lives in Limbo

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Dario Robleto artist profile

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Wall Flowers

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Last Book Sale

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Clothes that Make the Man

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0