Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

Dario Robleto artist profile

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

No Gogh!

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Last Book Sale

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Giant Steps

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

Lives in Limbo

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Wall Flowers

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Image in the 21st Century

The Great Mellowing

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Unveiling “Austin”

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Library?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu