BTS' RM Takes Korean Culture Beyond K-POP With SFMOMA Exhibition

Just months after filling a stadium in the Bay Area with BTS, Leader RM is heading back to San Francisco. This time, however, music is not what is bringing him there.

RM will personally attend a media preview for "RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on September 29, introducing an exhibition built around nearly 200 works from his personal art collection. His appearance will be limited to credentialed media, with the exhibition itself opening to the public on October 3.

The visit marks another step in RM's increasingly significant presence outside music, particularly within the art world. What began publicly as an artist regularly sharing museum visits and artworks with fans has developed into something much more institutional: his own collection being presented by one of the United States' major modern art museums.

"Between You and Me" brings together modern and contemporary Korean artworks collected personally by RM. Rather than simply lending his celebrity name to an exhibition, the project places his own taste as a collector at its center, giving visitors an opportunity to encounter Korean art through works he has chosen.

That distinction is particularly notable considering the international audience attached to RM. For many BTS fans, the exhibition may provide an entry point into artists and works they otherwise might never encounter, allowing his influence to operate differently from the way it does through music.

Furthermore, the exhibition places Korean culture in front of an international audience through a route considerably different from K-POP's usual exports. By bringing his personal collection of Korean modern and contemporary art into an American museum, RM demonstrates how the global reach of K-POP can serve as a gateway to broader aspects of Korean culture, encouraging audiences to explore areas such as art and history beyond the music that first drew them in.

His return to the Bay Area makes that contrast particularly visible. RM and the other BTS members were last there in May for three sold-out concerts at Stanford Stadium. Four months later, he is returning as a collector introducing art.

"RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me" will run from October 3 through February 7.