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A "Public Art Coming Soon" sign at Waterfront Park is about to deliver on its promise.
The City of Alexandria's Office of the Arts announced Monday that installation is underway for Now or Never, the eighth edition of the annual Site See: New Views in Old Town public art series. The work, by interdisciplinary artist Alicia Eggert, opens to the public March 21 with a free reception from 1 to 4 p.m. at Waterfront Park, 1 Prince St.
The Alexandria Commission for the Arts unanimously approved Eggert's concept last September. The installation features two billboard-style sculptures — each roughly 17.5 feet tall and 40 feet long — standing face to face across a narrow passageway. One reads NOW, the other NEVER. The orientation is deliberate: from one direction, NOW appears on the left and NEVER on the right, but walk through and look back, and the relationship flips.
The design is intentionally confrontational. Visitors are invited to walk the corridor between the structures, an act the artist frames as a search for common ground between opposing absolutes. "By inviting people to move physically between the structures, the artwork underscores the possibility of finding common ground, even in polarized circumstances," according to the city's project description.
Eggert, an associate professor of studio art at the University of North Texas, has exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, among other major institutions. She holds a TED Fellowship and a Long Now Foundation Fellowship.
Now or Never will remain on view through November 2026. Artist remarks are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the March 21 opening. The event is free and open to the public.
More information is available at alexandriava.gov/publicart.
