Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Unveiling “Austin”

The Great Mellowing

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Wall Flowers

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Image in the 21st Century

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Giant Steps

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

No Gogh!

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Lives in Limbo

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

What Will Become of the Library?

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

The Last Book Sale

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