Elisa Arguello

Eli Argüello (she/her) is a first year Master’s student in Columbia’s program for Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies. Eli’s concentration regards the positioning of “craft” and non-“fine” materials in the contemporary, American museum space. She is increasingly interested in how diversifying the collection of an institution may also welcome new communities to the museum. Eli graduated from Stanford University in June 2025 with departmental honors in Art History. Her undergraduate honors thesis, “The Contemporary Materiality of Softness: Fiber Based Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art,” focused on the Whitney's pattern of acquiring and exhibiting soft, or textile-based, sculpture. This work investigated how the museum’s 2019 exhibition, Making Knowing: Craft in Art 1950-2019, framed soft sculpture as a contemporary form, strengthened by its historical utility and the “politics of thread.” 

At Stanford, Eli was awarded the Oral Communication Program's 2025 Award for Excellence in Honors Thesis Presentation, as well as the Christopher Meyer Prize in Art History. She has conducted independent research at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Rutgers University Archives and Special Collections, and the Tate Modern in London. She has previously worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas.