Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Wonderful World of Bluth

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Lives in Limbo

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Clothes that Make the Man

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Giant Steps

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Image in the 21st Century

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Wall Flowers

The Catastrophe Guru

“Trapped” in the Limelight

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Last Book Sale

The Great Mellowing

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

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

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Will Become of the Library?

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

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

No Gogh!

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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