Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Clothes that Make the Man

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Image in the 21st Century

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Wall Flowers

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Lives in Limbo

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Dario Robleto artist profile

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Library?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Giant Steps

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Catastrophe Guru

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

No Gogh!

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Last Book Sale

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Great Mellowing

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor