BTS RM to unveil 140 artworks collected over 10 years at SFMOMA

BTS RM is revealing his past ten years not on a stage, but in an art museum. This comes as approximately 140 artworks collected by the global star are being unveiled to the public for the first time. In particular, this exhibition draws attention because it goes beyond merely introducing a celebrity's hobby; it functions as a kind of 'self-portrait' that allows one to read a person's inner self and tastes through what they have looked at and chosen over a long period of time.

According to Big Hit Music on the 30th, the special exhibition 'RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me' will be held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from October 3 until February 7, 2027. This marks the first time RM's personal collection will be made public, and it is also the first time SFMOMA has collaborated with a K-pop artist for an exhibition. Approximately 180 pieces, including about 140 items from RM's personal collection and pieces from the museum's collection, will meet the audience.

The reason this exhibition is interesting is that it does not end with the simple topic of 'BTS RM likes paintings.' RM personally selected the works with curators, designed the exhibition flow, and even wrote the exhibition texts and artwork descriptions in both Korean and English. He also participated in recording the audio guides in both languages and selecting the music for the exhibition hall. Rather than just being a part of the exhibition, he has essentially constructed an artistic narrative through his own perspective. This is why RM described the exhibition as a "quite long self-introduction," noting that "it is rare for anything to show a person as honestly as a collection they have gathered over a long time.""

Art collecting is different in nature from simple consumption. Rather than the fact that expensive works were purchased, what a person chooses and what they look at for a long time reveals their aesthetic taste and values. As Pierre Bourdieu explained through the concept of cultural capital, taste in art is both a personal private preference and a result of accumulated social experience, education, and hierarchical environments. However, in RM's case, another layer is added. This is because he is expanding his identity by converting the economic capital accumulated as a global pop culture star into cultural interests and choices.

The exhibition includes works by representative artists of Korean modern and contemporary art, such as Yoon Hyung Keun, Park Rae Hyun, Jang Wook Jin, Kwon Ok Yeon, Kim Yun Shin, and Do Sang Bong. Alongside these, works by Kim Whanki and Nam June Paik from the SFMOMA collection will be displayed, together with works by Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Henri Matisse, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibition also covers the flow of Korean art from the 5th century to the modern era, encompassing ceramics, calligraphy, painting, and sculpture. The method of juxtaposing the temporal depth of Korean art with the major trends of Western modern art in one space forms a venue for cultural translation that goes beyond RM's individual taste.

In particular, the part where RM explains the reason he has been collecting works by Korean modern and contemporary artists well illustrates the character of this exhibition. He stated that he has been collecting them with a "desire to add a slightly better perspective and sense" to the names of Korean artists who are still unfamiliar abroad. This reflects a cultural sensibility that connects to his own experience of meeting the world through K-pop. Just as Korean popular music was once an unfamiliar genre abroad, there are names in Korean art that are not sufficiently known in the international art scene. RM is taking on the role of not just possessing works he discovered first, but bringing them back before a global audience.

This move is also an example of how the social role of K-pop stars is changing. In the past, the cultural influence of pop singers was measured primarily by indicators within the entertainment industry, such as album sales, concert audiences, and the number of television appearances. However, in the era of global stars, influence extends beyond music. By broadcasting their tastes and values in various cultural fields such as fashion, art, architecture, literature, exhibitions, and donations, stars function like a single "cultural platform." RM's art collection is also one facet of such expanded stardom.

His connection to the art world has not been short. RM has consistently shown himself visiting various museums to appreciate artworks, and in 2020, he donated 100 million won to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Foundation. At that time, the donation was used to produce 4,000 copies of out-of-print Korean art catalogs and distribute them to 400 public and school libraries nationwide. This connects to the current exhibition in that he showed interest in expanding the public foundation for accessing Korean art.

More broadly, RM's artistic journey touches upon the crack in the hierarchy that has long existed between popular culture and fine art. Traditionally, museums were institutional spaces with relatively limited audiences, while pop music stars belonged to the commercial realm with large fandoms. However, in the digital age, the boundaries between these two areas are blurring rapidly. An artist with tens of millions of fans draws audiences into museums, and museums reach new audiences through the star's influence. The collaboration between RM and SFMOMA can be seen as a moment where these cultural boundaries intersect within an actual institution.

Above all, what to look for in this exhibition is not 'what he owns' but 'what he has looked at while living.' The 140 pieces collected over 10 years contain not just the time and taste of the global star BTS RM, but of the individual Kim Nam Joon. It shows what colors, lines, textures, and silences the person who receives the gaze of countless people on a glamorous stage actually looked at when he was alone. In this way, an art collection becomes a kind of inner landscape.

Ultimately, the exhibition title 'Between You and Me' is also meaningful. While a distance always exists between a star on stage and their fans, art sometimes narrows that gap. The moment RM re-weaves the works he has collected over 10 years with his own writing, music, and perspective for the audience, the artworks transcend being mere possessions and become a medium for conveying a human being's memories and senses. What BTS RM is revealing in this exhibition is not just 140 artworks, but the 'chronicle of taste' itself—showing how a global star has expanded his inner self through what he has observed over the past decade.