Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Wall Flowers

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Unveiling “Austin”

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

What Will Become of the Library?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Giant Steps

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Last Book Sale

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Lives in Limbo

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

The Great Mellowing

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

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

The Catastrophe Guru

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

No Gogh!

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Welcome to Texas, Elon

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

The Image in the 21st Century

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor