Party as Form

with Alberto Aguilar & Maria Burundarena
SCULPTURE 462 001 | 3 credits | $175 lab fee
June 15–28, 2025

Party As Form takes the history of celebration as its point of departure for a class that blends cultural theory with current experiments in curating, social practice and performance. Through a combination of readings, discussions and deployment, students will study the history, aesthetics, labor and conventions for parties from the intimate to the public, religious to the secular. Designed as a theory and practice art history class, Party As Form challenges participants to experience Ox Bow, a site for gathering, community, participation and production, through the lens of readings in sociology, cultural and art theory on ideas that critically address the event, celebration or party as the gathering, hosting and cultivating of a group. Topics include: liminality, community, formation of publics, spectacle, utopias, leisure, play and ecstasy. Class consists of a combination of reading and discussion, lectures and presentations alongside projects that anchor discussion through interpretation, conceptualization and the full design and hosting of on-site events. Students taking the course for Art History credit write critical and/or scholarly papers that locate their party, or event within the context of contemporary art and art history. Students taking the course for Sculpture will be required to design, fabricate, and implement objects and scenarios that relate to the directives of the course. Party forms may include: weddings, raves, galas, Cinco de Mayo, parades, tea parties, debutante balls, masquerades, bar mitzvahs, Mardi Gras, New Years Eve, Chinese New Year, 4th of July, Bastille Day, Burning Man, sleepovers and more.

Alberto Aguilar, La Manifestación del Milagro de Isabela María Aguilar (In Three Parts), 2023, vinyl, aluminum, channel posts, wood and sandbags

Alberto Aguilar (he/his/they) is a Chicago-based artist that uses the party as form to create a shared public moment. In "A Personal Dinner Invitation” he invited strangers into his home to experience a normal dinner party with a slightly amplified program. In 2015 he organized “Wedding to Unknown" where a couple was married and celebrated before 200 unsuspecting guests. In 2024 he organized a block party in Pilsen by invitation of the Chicago Humanities Festival. This event happened throughout a single day in and around The National Museum of Mexican Art. The day began with “Museum Church", which was meant to give attendees a sense of grounding. For “Auto Portrait Spectacular,” 24 artists were invited to show their cars as vehicles of public engagement, installation or as artworks themselves in the museum parking lot. Along with the cars there were performances and live music that unfolded throughout the night as well as Aguilar’s signature 50 ingredient mole served to the public by a food truck. Alberto is the recipient of the 2024 Latinx Artist Fellowship. He has appeared in the Creative Independent as well as NYU’s Latinx Project.

Maria Burundarena, Vidrios rotos que brillan como un Rayo - Broken glass shines like Thunder Lightning, 2022, Xerox prints, foil, and four channel projections, Size variable

Maria Burundarena (she/her) was born in 1989 in Paris, France and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is currently based in Chicago, USA. Maria is a visual artist and educator who has developed work as a textile designer and photographer, printing different narratives onto garments, sculptures, installations, and LED screens. Her current work explores large-scale installations using print media, light projection and reflective materials. Maria has exhibited in ZAZ 10 Times Square, New York; Hope College, Holland, Michigan; Mayfield, the Franklin; MdW Mana Contemporary, Chicago; Athletic Association, Chicago; Heaven Gallery, Chicago; Compound Yellow; Oak Park, Illinois; and the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Chicago. In 2024, Maria was named one of Chicago’s Breakout Artists and received the IAP grant from DCASE. Maria holds a BFA from la Universidad de Buenos Aires (FADU) and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a lecturer in the Contemporary Practices department.