Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

“Trapped” in the Limelight

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Image in the 21st Century

Dario Robleto artist profile

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Last Book Sale

Giant Steps

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

No Gogh!

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

The Catastrophe Guru

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

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

Lives in Limbo

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Wall Flowers

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

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

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Great Mellowing

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

What Will Become of the Library?

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment