"This Present Moment" on view at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
"Sculptor Alicia Eggert creates immersive experiences of time. This neon billboard casts a brilliant pink light throughout the Renwick’s Octagon Room, prompting us to become more present in this very moment. Eggert illuminates a quote by revolutionary futurist Stewart Brand, from his book The Clock of the Long Now (1999), a manifesto for living intentionally with a ten-thousand-year-old clock in mind. The pink is a call out to the Me Too movement of 2017, a once unimaginable social reckoning that empowered people to share past stories of sexual harassment and assault, demand accountability, and make possible safer conditions for all."
Photography by by Albert Ting.
"Alicia Eggert: This Present Moment, 2019-22" at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis
June, 2023 - June, 2024
"Sculpting words the way other artists sculpt clay, wood or stone, Alicia Eggert considers language and time to be her mediums. For this work, Eggert plays with our experience of time, using the effects of neon signage to turn writer Stewart Brand’s phrase “This present moment used to be the unimaginable future” into the simpler phrase “This moment used to be the future.” Originally installed in partnership with the Long Now Foundation on a mountaintop in Nevada among bristlecone pines, the sculpture takes on new meaning on the UC Davis campus. What kind of futures might we imagine here on campus and for whom?"
Photography by Haley Di Pressi.
"Monumentous" at Russell Hill Rogers Gallery, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
October 8 - October 28, 2022
"Alicia Eggert’s exhibition "Monumentous" includes text-based visual artworks, neon signs, paintings, sculptures, interactive installations, photographs, and video art that embrace the power and poetry of language. In work like “The Universe Within,” Eggert puts into words what many of us often forget: that we are always active agents in even the smallest endeavors in our everyday busy lives. Eggert explains, “If Time is a construct, my goal is to determine exactly how it’s constructed and how our perception of Time is shaped by personal, cultural, and geographical factors. I derive my inspiration from reading about Time as it’s defined by physics and philosophy, but I focus on the words and phrases we use in our everyday language — words like “now” and “then” — as points of entry into more complex ideas.""
Photography by by Beth Devellier.
"Conditions of Possibility" at Liliana Bloch Gallery, Dallas, Texas
April 24 - May 22, 2021
"In Conditions of Possibility, Alicia Eggert presents a new body of work that creates opportunities for people to physically experience, perceive and understand Time in new ways. The exhibition’s title is derived from a concept in transcendental philosophy made popular by Immanuel Kant, which describes the necessary conditions of experience. Eggert uses that concept as a framework for imagining the present moment as much longer and wider than our narrow field of vision can contain. Her work portrays this brief moment in time as a continuation of the deep time of the past, which extends into a future that will carry on long after we are gone.
A large-scale steel sculpture titled The Unimaginable Future occupies a majority of the gallery space. Like rebar structures that are used to cast architectural or infrastructural objects in concrete, the sculpture is a large rectangular gridded form with negative spaces in the shape of letters that spell the word FUTURE. Three small kinetic sculptures mounted to a nearby wall use red clock hands to form the word NOW at different times. These objects ask us to consider how we might be able to imagine other possible futures that are currently unimaginable, and to wonder what conditions/systems must be put in place now in order for those futures to be made-present."
Photography by by Kevin Todora.
"Timelike, Spacelike, Lightlike" at Galeria Fernando Santos, Porto, Portugal
May 4 - September 21, 2019
"For her second solo exhibition at Galeria Fernando Santos, American artist Alicia Eggert drew inspiration from theoretical physics and philosophy — Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity and Plato’s Theory of Forms. These artworks are the artist’s attempts to comprehend the way light travels through spacetime, or the way forms might be able to transcend space and time altogether. Eggert’s motivation is rooted in her struggle to understand the linear, finite and fleeting nature of human life as it exists within a cyclical, seemingly infinite universe. As a conceptual artist, she uses simple words found in our everyday language as points of entry into complex ideas that otherwise feel beyond her intellectual grasp. Eggert gives these words physical and material forms in hopes that we might be able to understand an idea more fully if we can experience it physically, and because matter and energy are the substance of life."
"You Are Magic" for Mural Arts Month, Philadelphia, PA
October 26 - November 3, 2018
"In honor of Mural Arts Month, Mural Arts Philadelphia and curator Ryan Strand Greenberg present artist Alicia Eggert’s You Are Magic, a large-scale, interactive, inflatable sculpture designed to inspire wonder and evoke the power or collaboration. You Are Magic is an original artwork created for Arlington County, Virginia's Cultural Affairs Division as part of their Arlington Art Truck program.
You Are Magic is designed to inspire wonder and evoke the power of collaboration. When two people hold hands with each person touching one of the handprint sensors, they complete an electrical circuit and the deflated sculpture comes to life, expanding into the words "You Are Magic." The sculpture fills with air, growing larger the longer participants hold hands. But as soon as they release their hands the circuit is broken, and the sculpture deflates into a crumpled pile of fabric on the ground.
Friday, October 26th at Aviator Park, Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Thursday, November 1st at Cherry Street Pier, Delaware River Waterfront.
Saturday, November 3rd at Paines Park, Martin Luther King JR. Drive & Benjamin Franklin Parkway."
Photography by Ryan Strand Greenberg.
"You Are Magic" for the Arlington Art Truck, Arlington, VA
Various dates in May & August, 2018
"The magic of the human touch is integral to the Arlington Art Truck: You Are Magic installation. The interactive sculpture by artist Alicia Eggert is the second installation aboard the new Arlington Art Truck. A program of Arlington Arts, the Arlington Art Truck already is the recipient of a prestigious $25,000 Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in support of its first season of programming. The Arlington Art Truck is curated by Arlington Arts’ Special Projects Curator, Cynthia Connolly.
You Are Magic is a large-scale, interactive inflatable sculpture designed to inspire wonder and evoke the power of collaboration. When two people touch the handprint sensors and hold hands across the platform, the deflated sculpture comes to life. The inflatable fills with air, growing larger the longer participants hold hands, expanding into the words "You Are Magic." But as soon as they release their hands the circuit is broken, and the sculpture deflates into a crumpled pile of fabric on the ground.
The Arlington Art Truck embodies Arlington Arts’ mission to revolutionize the traditional model of an arts venue. Packed with digital and traditional creative tools, the Arlington Art Truck is a curated mobile tool box for artists-in-residence. From April to October, the Artists themselves will cruise the streets of Arlington to engage the public in projects ranging from an impromptu workshop or performance, to a pop-up gallery, all designed to blur the line between participant and presenter, citizen and bureaucracy."
"Between Being and Becoming" at the University of Arkansas Sculpture Gallery, Fayetteville, AK
September 7 - 22, 2018
"This exhibition will consist of two ideas/objects that cannot physically exist at the same time. Two inflatable sculptures — the words “NOW” and “THEN” — will be connected to the same air source, so that one must suck the air out of the other in order to bring itself into existence."
"Signs and Wonders" at Galeria Fernando Santos, Porto, Portugal
June 17 - September 16, 2017
"Signs and Wonders, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by American interdisciplinary artist Alicia Eggert, derives its title from the artist's upbringing as the daughter of a Pentecostal Christian minister. "Unless you see signs and wonders," Jesus said in John 4:48, "you will never believe.” Eggert, who as an adult has become an atheist, does not believe in any organized religion. But she has come to realize that art, religion and science - which are often opposing - have something really important in common: wonder. Eggert's artwork often takes the form of signs in various scales and mediums, but the concepts highlighted by Eggert's work are not extraordinary occurrences or prophetic proclamations. Rather, they are everyday realities explained by science and familiar to us all, but which never cease to inspire wonder."
"Partial Visibility" at The MAC, Dallas, TX
March 18 - April 8, 2017
"The MAC is proud to present Partial Visibility, a solo exhibition of new work by interdisciplinary artist Alicia Eggert. This exhibition includes a range of media: large-scale neon signs, lenticular prints, and video installation. In Partial Visibility, Eggert considers time and language her primary sculptural materials. This body of work struggles to reconcile oppositional concepts of time - the linear and finite nature of human life within the context of a cyclical and seemingly infinite universe. Immaterial concepts are given tangible forms that are manipulated both physically and conceptually. Eggert coopts strategies and mediums associated with commercial signage and advertising, and employs them to encourage thoughtful introspection and reflection. The exhibition's title suggests the presence of something that we cannot quite see or understand and most likely never will."
Photography by Mike Fleming
"Partial Visibility" at T+H Gallery, Boston, MA
August 5 - September 24, 2016
"T+H Gallery is pleased to presentPartialVisibility, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by interdisciplinary artist Alicia Eggert. This show includes a range of media: lenticular prints, video, neon and illuminated signs, neon sculpture and projection; her work focuses on the relationship between language, image and time. Eggert’s artwork often moves, changes, deteriorates, and in some cases, even dies. This is her second show in Boston, on view at 460 Harrison Ave, C19 & 20.
Eggert’s art practice and her show, Partial Visibility, are founded on her sense of wonder. Her goal is to create works of art that inspire a sense of wonder in others. Art, religion and science, which are often thought of as opposing, have this really important concept in common. Wonder is both cognitive and spiritual; it’s the curiosity that drives us to learn new things about ourselves and the world around us. Moreover, it’s also the feeling we get when we encounter things that are beyond our understanding.
Eggert’s work is often a personal struggle to reconcile oppositional concepts of time - the linear and finite nature of her own life within the context of a cyclical and seemingly infinite universe. She considers time and language her primary sculptural materials. In Partial Visibility, these immaterial concepts are given tangible forms that can be manipulated both physically and conceptually.
Eggert also coopts and employs strategies and mediums associated with commercial signage and advertising to encourage thoughtful introspection and reflection. Signs serve as indicators or evidence of what is happening or going to happen, that something is not present when it should be. The exhibition’s title, Partial Visibility, suggests the presence of something that we cannot see, the possible occurrence of something we cannot predict."
"Known Unknown" at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE
January 14 - February 9, 2015
"Alicia Eggert's exhibition "Known Unknown" is a neon sign whose letters blink on and off to reveal the phrases “known known”, “known unknown”, “unknown unknown”, and “unknown known.” It is inspired by United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s response to a question at a U.S. Department of Defense news briefing in 2002: "…there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." The sign also speaks to our cultural experience of time. We perceive time as a continuous progression from the known past to the unknown future, yet we often struggle to predict or know the future, and to forget or unknow the past. But to what end?"
"Everything You Are Looking For" at Artisphere, Arlington, VA
November 21, 2013 - February 2, 2014
Curators: Cynthia Connolly and Ryan Holladay
"By the time you’ve finished reading these words, the molecules that form the adhesive behind each letter is losing its grip. The air in the room has shifted. The cells in your body continue a cycle of regeneration. The passage of time effects everything tangible and intangible as each moment makes way for its successor. Alicia Eggert's work is a celebration of this reality.
Alicia Eggert is an American artist whose work primarily takes the form of kinetic, electronic and interactive sculpture. ‘Everything You Are Looking For’, her largest solo exhibition to date, presents a body of work that draws on her background in sculpture and dimensional studies and is firmly rooted in design. A professor at Bowdoin College in Portland, Maine, Eggert was recently awarded the Dave Bown Awards Grand Prize and a named a 2013 TED Fellow.
Utilizing materials from the mechanics of highway signage, the sculptures in this exhibit explore the aesthetics of time and the nature of anticipation through words and messages in motion. That motion can be found both in the mechanics of the object itself or by our personal interaction with the sculpture. The relationship with time is a common theme in Eggert’s world. It does not move at a steady pace, quite the opposite. We are caught in a turnstile where time seemingly slows before the word is revealed and accelerates when the message disappears. Similarly, her photographs, found and frozen moments of anticipation move us to fill in the rest of the story.
Eggerts’ practice, often collaborative and interdisciplinary, explores this same idea across many mediums. We tend to think of our lives as being characterized by the events, the landmarks, the turning points, the happenings. A long straight line, punctuated by a series of experiences that come to define us and imbue our lives with meaning. Eggert trades in what could be thought of as chronological negative space, the moments surrounding the moments. The years waiting for the wedding day, the driver’s license, the grandchildren. The long, seemingly endless months until summer vacation (and the accelerated weeks until its disappeared). The days waiting for the test results. The minutes standing at the free throw line. The last second before the first kiss. The moment you are reading these words. Right. Now. "
Photography by Page Carr
"Present Perfect" at the Cohen Center Gallery, Alfred, NY
September 10 - October 16, 2013
"In Present Perfect, Alicia Eggert presents a body of work that serves as an ongoing investigation of time. Works including drawing, photography, neon, and kinetic sculpture that juxtapose cyclical, linear, finite and infinite representations of time. One kinetic sculpture repeatedly creates and destroys the word NOW, but just like time itself, it never quite comes to a complete stop. Another sculpture has been programmed to have a human lifespan, and to "die" after 78 years. A photograph of a man looking at his watch captures a dying gesture, and a 12-foot long drawing measures time in feet and inches. If time is a construct, Present Perfect seeks to figure out how, exactly, it is constructed."
Photography by Mike Fleming