Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

No Gogh!

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Giant Steps

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Wall Flowers

The Last Book Sale

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Film Reviews and Local Arts Coverage

Austin Chronicle

Unveiling “Austin”

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Image in the 21st Century

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What Will Become of the Library?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Robert Irwin in Marfa

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Catastrophe Guru

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Great Mellowing

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Lives in Limbo

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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