Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Giant Steps

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Wall Flowers

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

The Image in the 21st Century

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Lives in Limbo

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

The Last Book Sale

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Catastrophe Guru

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Wonderful World of Bluth

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

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

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Great Mellowing

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

No Gogh!

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Unveiling “Austin”