Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Image in the 21st Century

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Unveiling “Austin”

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

“Trapped” in the Limelight

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Catastrophe Guru

Dario Robleto artist profile

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Great Mellowing

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Last Book Sale

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Wall Flowers

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

No Gogh!

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Clothes that Make the Man

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Lives in Limbo

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Giant Steps

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince