When Art Collecting Is a Family Affair

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Victoria Rogers, who has spent the past year as director of arts for the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, is one of those people who juggles so many commitments — from work to nonprofit activities to social engagements — that you may feel a little lazy or unpopular by comparison.

Art collecting is one of her many pursuits, as evidenced by her crowded Greenwich Village apartment, a studio that is trying, with the addition of a partition, to be a one-bedroom. Pieces by Hank Willis Thomas, Yinka Shonibare and LaToya Ruby Frazier are all on view, demonstrating her passion for work by black contemporary artists.

At only 27, Ms. Rogers may be among the youngest trustees of a major American museum, serving in that role at the Brooklyn Museum since last July. Ms. Rogers is also a trustee of Creative Time, having been brought on at both institutions by the Brooklyn Museum’s director, Anne Pasternak. As Ms. Rogers put it, “Anne wants to take risks, and maybe I’m one of them.” In what passes for her free time, she also serves on the global council of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Ms. Rogers grew up in Chicago with notable parents: John W. Rogers Jr., the founder of Ariel Investments, and Desirée Rogers, White House social secretary for the Obamas and, until recently, chief executive of Johnson Publishing. (They are divorced.)

The younger Ms. Rogers is leaving Kickstarter for Stanford, where she will begin an M.B.A. program in the fall, but she is keeping her New York apartment with the art in place. As the insistent ping of text messages rang out on her phone, she talked about her premier wall, a narrow space between two tall, gracious windows facing a leafy street.

It’s an eclectic lineup: Lorna Simpson’s drawing “Natural Brown” (2013); Émile Bernard’s oil on canvas “Vue de Pont-Aven” (1887); two 1930s fashion sketches; a 2013 untitled work by Bruce High Quality Foundation; Brian Dettmer’s “Surgical Nursing” (2007); and, on a table below, two 2014 vases by Kara Walker.

How do these all fit together?

I fall in love with things and collect them without a grand strategy. They also all have a deeper story, where I am supporting a friend, or connecting to a personal relationship or a cause beyond the aesthetic object.

What’s a good example of that?

I love Lorna’s work — [“Natural Brown”] is a quiet one, but it came out of my relationship with the artist Wangechi Mutu. It was sold to help Wangechi support L.B.G.T.Q.I.A. [lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual] people throughout Africa. She’s super cool. And the Bruce High Quality piece, that’s a picture of me and a friend, who was their studio manager. She had the Bruces Bruce-ify it.

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