Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Giant Steps

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Image in the 21st Century

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Wall Flowers

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

“Trapped” in the Limelight

No Gogh!

The Great Mellowing

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Last Book Sale

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Catastrophe Guru

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Library?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Lives in Limbo

The Clothes that Make the Man