Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

No Gogh!

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Giant Steps

The Last Book Sale

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Lives in Limbo

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Image in the 21st Century

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

The Catastrophe Guru

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Wall Flowers

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Great Mellowing