Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Unveiling “Austin”

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

The Catastrophe Guru

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Image in the 21st Century

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

No Gogh!

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Will Become of the Library?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Dario Robleto artist profile

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Last Book Sale

Lives in Limbo

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

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Giant Steps

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Great Mellowing

Wall Flowers

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Clothes that Make the Man

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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