He’s spent years climbing the charts—now, RM has his eye on the gallery wall. The art-loving BTS frontman is teaming up with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) to reveal his personal collection for the very first time.
Opening October 2026, “RM x SFMOMA” will be the first museum show to feature selections from the star’s trove of contemporary artworks, which will be placed in dialog with pieces from the museum’s holdings. RM’s hope is for the dual presentation to serve as a bridge across divides.
“We live in an age defined by boundaries. This exhibition at SFMOMA reflects those boundaries: between East and West, Korea and America, the modern and the contemporary, the personal and the universal,” he said in a statement. “I don’t want to prescribe how these works should be seen; whether out of curiosity or study, all perspectives are welcome.”
Philip Guston, (1969). Collection of RM; © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.
RM’s love for visual art has long been writ large in his lyrics, album covers, and Instagram posts. Things began, he said, in 2018 when he decided to pop by the Art Institute of Chicago during a break in his tour schedule. The visit was transformative: “It was like: wow,” he told the New York Times in 2022. “I was looking at these art pieces, and it was an amazing experience.”
Since then, RM has documented his regular visits to art venues—from London’s Tate Modern to New York’s Skarstedt Gallery to Jeju’s Bonte Museum—across social media. His 2022 solo album, Indigo, would feature tributes to South Korean painter Yun Hyong-Keun on its sleeve and its first track, “Yun.”
Chusa Kim Jeong-hui, , 19th century, Joseon dynasty; Collection of RM.
The multihyphenate, who has been spotted at fairs including Frieze Seoul and Art Basel, has also quietly built a sizeable art collection. It’s a trove that encompasses Korean art, including the seminal likes of Park Soo Keun and Nam June Paik, as well as contemporary, red-chip pieces by KAWS and Bearbrick. In 2022, RM loaned a Kwon Jin-Kyu sculpture to the Seoul Museum of Art for the artist’s retrospective.
“Art is like every basic thing in life, like eating and sleeping,” he said earlier this year. “It’s a beautiful process to be an art man.”
Yun Hyong-keun, (1979). Collection of RM; © Yun Seong-ryeol, courtesy PKM Gallery.
At SFMOMA, RM will be surfacing key Korean artworks from his collection, some never before exhibited. Among the artists featured will be pioneering figures of Korean Modernism Park Rehyun and Chang Ucchin; abstract artist Kwon Okyon; sculptor Kim Yun Shin; master of realism To Sangbong; and of course, Yun, best known for his meditative canvases of blacks and blues. Other works in the show include canvases by Giorgio Morandi, Roni Horn, and Philip Guston.
Kim Whanki, (1970). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gift of Mrs. Whanki Kim; © Estate of Whanki Kim. Photo: Katherine Du Tiel.
For its part, the museum is contributing highlights from its collection, such as pieces by abstract painter Kim Whanki. Elsewhere are works by Modern masters Henri Matisse and Georgia O’Keeffe as well as Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin.
“Visitors will have an unprecedented opportunity to explore RM’s beautiful and contemplative collection of paintings and sculpture in dialogue with works from SFMOMA’s holdings,” Janet Bishop, chief curator at SFMOMA, noted in a statement, “inviting us to make new discoveries and reflect on our own relationships with art.”
“RM x SFMOMA” will be on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, California, October 2026–February 2027.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
