Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

No Gogh!

The Last Book Sale

Dario Robleto artist profile

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Lives in Limbo

Unveiling “Austin”

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Wall Flowers

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

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

The Catastrophe Guru

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

What Will Become of the Library?

The Image in the 21st Century

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

The Great Mellowing

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Giant Steps

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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