Henne Lena Van Campen ’24
Meet the Majors
Other clubs, sports, and activities:
I am the editor-in-chief of Smith’s art history journal, Verdigris, and the Morrow House President!
Describe your major for someone who has never heard of your field before.
I study contemporary art… so I basically study philosophy with pictures!
But more seriously it is a culmination of many different disciplines. I truly believe that art historians are some of the most knowledgeable people because they have to know so many small, sometimes random, things about the artworks they’re focusing on. (We certainly have the most weird tidbits!)
If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?
To race motorcycles! I don’t know there are so many fun things.
Did you ever have trouble deciding on a major? What, ultimately, helped you decide?
I definitely messed around my first semester at Smith (thought I was going to do chemistry or biology), but after I took my first art history class with Professor Barbara Kellum, I was hooked! I took a ton of art history classes the next semester and just stuck with it!
Art historians are some of the most knowledgeable people because they have to know so many small, sometimes random, things about the artworks they’re focusing on.
What’s your “Big Dream” for your future?
I hope to be able to do a funded PhD program! I’m not sure whether I would go into academia or into curatorial work. Because I’m interested in the contemporary, I would love to work abroad and to work directly with living artists in my research!
If you were in charge of selecting one piece of art for everyone in the world to view, what would it be?
Most of my work, and my thesis, focuses on pretty graphic, intense, or weird performance art. I think that if I had to pick a single piece, it would be Chris Burden’s White Light/White Heat. It’s just such an odd piece that I would love to know how everyone would react to it.
If you could tell an incoming first-year anything about Smith, what would it be?
Take more classes just for fun! There are some weird things that you can learn here that you might never have the chance to learn again. I am such a curious person and you should try your best to be, too!
