The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced a new exhibition that will see it collaborate with K-pop star RM (of BTS fame).
Titled “RM x SFMOMA,” the exhibition will bring together some 200 works from both SFMOMA’s permanent collection and RM’s personal collection. RM will serve as the exhibition’s lead curator, with assistant curator Hyoeun Kim and curatorial project manager América Castillo serving as co-curators. The exhibition will run from October 2025 to February 2027. (An opening date has not yet been set.)
Per a press release, SFMOMA is billing the exhibition as “a rare chance to see modern Korean artworks in conversation with contemporary artworks from around the world,” noting that a number of works from RM’s holdings have not been previously exhibited.
“We live in an age defined by boundaries,” RM said in a statement. “This exhibition at SFMOMA reflects those boundaries: between East and West, Korea and America, the modern and the contemporary, the personal and the universal. I don’t want to prescribe how these works should be seen; whether out of curiosity or study, all perspectives are welcome. My only hope is that this exhibition can be a small but sturdy bridge for many.”
The Korean artists who will be featured in the exhibition worked in a range of styles. Among them are historical artists Yun Hyong-keun, an abstractionist associated with Dansaekhwa movement; Park Rehyun, who worked in both figurative and abstract modes; Chang Ucchin, known of his unique strain of modernism that focused on scenes of everyday life; and Kwon Okyon, an underknown artist internationally who died in 2011. Contemporary artists like realist painter To Sangbong and sculptor Kim Yun Shin, who showed in the 2024 Venice Biennale, will also be featured.
Their work will be paired with Western artists from SFMOMA’s collection like Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Paul Klee. The exhibition will also include 26-I-70 (1979), the sole work by Kim Whanki, an abstractionist whose spare paintings preceded the Dansaekhwa movement; this work is owned by SFMOMA.
For the past few years, RM has used his fame to steer his fans into art museums. A road trip across this US in 2021 saw him visit institutions like the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel in Houston, and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. His Instagram posts documenting his visits led to increase followers and interactions for the museums, as well as a bump in attendance figures.
His loan of a work Kwon Jin Kyu to the Seoul Museum of Art in 2022 led that exhibition to become one of the museum’s most attended presentations that year. “As one of many art enthusiasts, I just want to visit great exhibitions when I get a chance and share with people so they can enjoy them as well,” RM told ARTnews in 2022.
This past June, RM completed his compulsory military service and has since reemerged on the contemporary art scene. He became a global ambassador for Samsung Art TV, which saw him participate in a panel at Art Basel in Switzerland in June.
In addition to “RM x SFMOMA,” visitors to the museum will also be able to see a major retrospective for Suzanne Jackson, which opened last month and runs through March 1, as well as a KAWS survey opening on November 15. In a statement, SFMOMA chief curator Janet Bishop said, “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, inviting us to make new discoveries and reflect on our own relationships with art.”
