The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is bracing for an unusually busy season, and the reason is not a blockbuster Impressionist retrospective or a touring Picasso show. It is RM, the leader of the K-pop supergroup BTS, who is displaying works from his own private art collection at a major museum for the first time. The exhibition, titled "RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me," has turned the institution into a pilgrimage site for devotees of the singer, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon.
Museum staff say the scale of interest is unlike anything they have handled before. Shane Salvata, SFMOMA's director of retail, said the gift shop has never stockpiled so much merchandise in advance of an exhibition. "This is hands down the most inventory that we've ever front-loaded for an exhibition," Salvata said, a comment that underscores how thoroughly the museum expects BTS's global fanbase to descend on its galleries and store in the coming months.
The anticipation was already evident on the sold-out first day of previews, when lines of visitors filled the museum. Among those who secured early access were Joi Karra and Bre Walker, two Bay Area residents in their twenties whose friendship was forged through a shared enthusiasm for BTS. The two met a few months ago at one of the local BTS-themed events that Walker organizes, part of a thriving fan-driven social scene that surrounds the group.
For Karra, a college student who also runs a side business making BTS-inspired pins and accessories, the exhibition blends two existing passions. She said she loves art and museums and has visited SFMOMA many times before. "I love art and museums," she said. "I've been to SFMOMA many times before." Her familiarity with the museum stands in contrast to her companion's experience.
Walker, by her own description, has never been much of a museum-goer. The exhibition marks her first visit to an art museum of any kind, and she credited RM directly for bringing her through the doors. "I am not an artsy person," Walker said. "This is my first time actually coming to an art museum. And it's all because of Nam-joon." Her comment illustrates a phenomenon museum professionals often hope for but rarely achieve: a pop-culture figure drawing an entirely new audience into galleries that might otherwise never have considered a visit.
The Kim Nam-joon she refers to has performed under the name RM for nearly a decade. He was originally known as "Rap Monster" earlier in his career before shortening the moniker. In the years since, he has become one of the most prominent figures in global pop music, and his influence has increasingly extended beyond music into the visual arts.
That extension has a name, coined by the fans themselves. BTS's worldwide following, collectively known as ARMY — an acronym for "Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth" — invented the term "Namjooning" to describe the lifestyle associated with the star's personal interests. Karra defined it simply as doing the things Nam-joon himself loves to do, a loose philosophy that has turned mundane pastimes such as strolling through galleries into a shared fan activity.
Visiting museums and collecting art sit at the heart of that pastime. RM began pursuing both roughly a decade ago, according to the source material, gradually assembling a personal collection and becoming a recognizable presence in the art world. His enthusiasm for painting and sculpture has fed directly into his creative output as a musician, inspiring songs that engage with specific artists and works.
One notable example is his track "Yun," which takes as its subject Yun Hyong-keun, a 20th-century Korean abstract painter. The song demonstrates how deeply RM's engagement with art runs: rather than treating collecting as a casual hobby, he has woven it into his songwriting, introducing listeners to artists they might otherwise never encounter and, in the process, acting as an unofficial ambassador for Korean modernism and the broader art world.
The arrival of his collection at SFMOMA therefore represents more than a celebrity side project. It places a K-pop star's personal taste on the same institutional footing as the curated holdings of a major American museum, and it tests whether fan enthusiasm can translate into sustained attention for the artworks themselves. The exhibition's title, "Between You and Me," suggests an intimate encounter between viewer and object, though the reality of the previews — packed rooms and eager crowds — points to a collective rather than private experience.
The commercial dimension is impossible to ignore. SFMOMA's decision to front-load merchandise reflects a calculated bet that ARMY members will treat the exhibition as a destination event, purchasing souvenirs as tokens of their visit. The scale of that bet, described by Salvata as unprecedented for the museum, signals that officials expect the show to rank among the institution's most heavily trafficked offerings in recent memory.
For fans like Walker, though, the draw appears to be genuinely personal rather than purely consumer-driven. Her decision to visit an art museum for the first time in her life, motivated by affection for a musician, represents precisely the kind of audience expansion that cultural institutions have pursued for years with limited success. Whether that first visit leads to a lasting relationship with art remains an open question, but the exhibition has already accomplished something notable by simply getting her through the door.
What happens over the next few months at SFMOMA will be watched closely both by the museum world and by the music industry. If the show succeeds in drawing sustained crowds and in directing their attention toward the works RM has chosen, it could offer a template for how pop stars and museums might collaborate. If visitors come mainly for the association with their idol, the exhibition will still have set attendance records — but the artistic conversation it hopes to spark may prove harder to sustain.
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