Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

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

The Image in the 21st Century

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Lives in Limbo

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Last Book Sale

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Catastrophe Guru

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Wall Flowers

No Gogh!

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What Will Become of the Library?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Giant Steps

The Great Mellowing

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Welcome to Texas, Elon