{"id":480105,"date":"2026-09-30T04:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T04:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480105\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T04:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T04:32:08","slug":"bts-leader-rm-visits-sfmoma-ahead-of-exhibition-san-francisco-is-one-of-the-coolest-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480105\/","title":{"rendered":"BTS leader RM visits SFMOMA ahead of exhibition: \u2018San Francisco is one of the coolest cities’"},"content":{"rendered":"

BTS star RM touched down in the Bay Area to celebrate the opening of his new exhibition<\/a> at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The typically confident performer showed a more personal side, shaking off nerves to speak at a private media preview event.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a while that I’ve made a speech,” he said at the event on Tuesday, Sept. 29. “This is my debut as a co-curator, and I’m nervous.”<\/p>\n

More Information<\/p>\n

“RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me”:<\/p>\n

Paintings and sculptures. Oct. 3-Feb. 7, 2027. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., S.F. 415-357-4000. www.sfmoma.org<\/a><\/p>\n

The K-pop star has been working with SFMOMA over the past two years to develop “RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me,” a showcase of more than 100 works of art from both his personal collections and the museum’s.<\/p>\n

“I still feel like I’m always drifting and floating somewhere, whether I’m in the U.S. or even when I’m in Seoul, where I was born and raised,” the Korean singer, whose real name is Kim Namjoon, said, referring to his life as a global performer. “It’s not a very pleasant feeling, so I think I’ve leaned on art a lot because of that feeling.”<\/p>\n

RM told the packed audience of cameras and reporters that SFMOMA first reached out to him about the opportunity while he was completing his mandatory 18-month South Korean military service, joking that at the time he “would have been happy with any kind of proposal coming from San Francisco.” He was officially discharged in June 2025.<\/p>\n

“I’ve liked collecting things ever since I was young, and at the same time, I do feel guilty about it. Like, do I really need to carry so many unnecessary things that I don’t even need?” he said with a smile. “Have I ended up becoming just a boring rich snore? Well, maybe. But I thought it would be nice if other people could see those as well.”<\/p>\n

When asked why he decided to launch the exhibition in the Bay Area, he answered with no hesitation.<\/p>\n

“San Francisco is one of the coolest cities in the world,” he said.<\/p>\n

The exhibition, located on the museum’s seventh floor, is divided into eight distinct sections that are based on various emotions and interests such as passion, and home. It features 142 pieces from RM’s art collection, in addition to 36 modern and contemporary works from SFMOMA’s holdings.<\/p>\n

“I started this with an innocent heart, I just didn’t know that this innocence would eventually make me write, erase, rewrite hundreds of labels and labels,” he joked.<\/p>\n

Though Tuesday’s event was invite-only, dozens of members of BTS’ Army, as the group’s most dedicated fans are known, heard that RM would be in attendance, and lined the streets outside the museum in hopes of catching a glimpse of the superstar.<\/p>\n

Friends Laura Lambert and Haripradha Ramajayam traveled to the city all the way from London to catch the show during opening week. Though they didn’t have access to Tuesday’s media preview, they figured they’d soak up the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

“I studied curation because of Namjoon,” Ramajayam told the Chronicle. “It’s just so meaningful for me to come here to visit his collection in person.”<\/p>\n

SFMOMA’s curatorial project manager, Am\u00e9rica Castillo, and assistant curator, Hyoeun Kim, are co-curators with RM and also spoke at Tuesday’s event. The exhibition will remain on view through Feb. 7, 2027.<\/p>\n

“RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me” is scheduled to open for member previews Thursday-Saturday Oct. 1-3 ahead of its public opening that Saturday. In addition to daily tickets, the museum is offering a $75 Encore Pass<\/a> that will grant devoted fans unlimited access to the exhibition, an exclusive gift and a 10% discount at the exhibition’s popup store.<\/p>\n

RM recorded a narrated audio guide to the exhibition for fans to listen to in both English and Korean. He also curated an in-gallery playlist of music that will be played in the space.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s event marks RM’s first time back in the Bay Area since performing three-sold out concerts with his BTS bandmates at Stanford Stadium in May. During that trip, members of the group were spotted exploring the area between shows, dining at Redwood City pizza spot Vesta<\/a>, playing at the Hub Pickleball Club Silicon Valley in Campbell and exploring Stanford University<\/a>‘s campus.<\/p>\n

The Chronicle’s senior video producer Joy Jeong contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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This article originally published at BTS leader RM visits SFMOMA ahead of exhibition: ‘San Francisco is one of the coolest cities’<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BTS star RM touched down in the Bay Area to celebrate the opening of his new exhibition at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[71331,29274,9734,135860,101,103,102,104,106,105,2310],"class_list":["post-480105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-art-exhibition","tag-bts","tag-exhibition","tag-rm","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfmoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}