Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Image in the 21st Century

The Clothes that Make the Man

Wall Flowers

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Catastrophe Guru

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Dario Robleto artist profile

What Will Become of the Library?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

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

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Last Book Sale

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

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

Giant Steps

The Great Mellowing

No Gogh!

Lives in Limbo

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Unveiling “Austin”

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter