I have always loved museums. I love the way objects hold stories, how exhibitions make connections between things we might not have thought to place beside each other, and how a visit can change what we know or what we thought we knew. Watching Namjoon co-curate an exhibition at SFMOMA has me thinking about more than BTS's or RM's influence. It has me thinking about museums, cultural authority, and the people we allow to shape our encounters with art.
Sadly, there's talk on social media questioning the legitimacy of RM as art collector, curator and aesthete. So, here are seven thoughts on RM's Between You and Me at SFMOMA and why it holds cultural weight.
1. Who gets to tell us what is worth looking at?
Museums have their curators, scholars, collectors, and institutional histories. These matter. But our encounters with art do not always begin in institutions. They begin with a song, a book, a conversation, or an artist whose curiosity sends us to a time or places we never knew existed.
2. An idol can be a serious student of art. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Why do we insist on treating popular culture and intellectual curiosity as opposing categories? Namjoon can be an idol, a songwriter, a collector, a reader, and a co-curator. None of these identities cancels out the others.
3. Fame can open a door, but it cannot tell us everything about what happens inside.
Yes, RM's name brings attention to SFMOMA. That is part of his cultural influence. But the more interesting question is what visitors might discover once they enter: the artworks, the histories, the artists, and perhaps a curiosity they will carry beyond the exhibition.
4. Personal taste is not the enemy of scholarship.
A collection can begin with what moves us. That first encounter can lead to questions about form, history, context, and meaning. Personal resonance and critical inquiry can exist together. In fact, isn't that one of the ways we learn?
5. Representation is also about who gets to participate in making meaning.
Which artists enter the museum? Which histories are placed beside one another? Whose perspective becomes part of the exhibition? These are not trivial questions. They shape what we see, what we remember, and what we come to recognise as part of our shared cultural inheritance.
6. We need to examine our prejudices about expertise.
Criticism is necessary. Celebrity should not make anyone immune to scrutiny. But when our first response is to question why an idol belongs in a museum, perhaps we should also ask ourselves what we assume an idol can know, appreciate, or contribute. Are we evaluating the work? Or are we struggling with the person doing it? Those are two very different conversations.
7. The best cultural encounters send us looking beyond the person who brought us there.
This is what I love about Namjooning. One person's curiosity becomes an invitation for someone else to look, read, listen, ask questions, and discover something of their own.
And as a librarian, I cannot think of a better outcome. We do not want people to stop at the first book, the first artwork, or the first question. We want them to keep going.
This is what makes Between You and Me worth discussing beyond the headlines and the fandom discourse. Art, like reading, can be an invitation to encounter something beyond ourselves. And if Bangtan has taught us anything about cultural influence, it is that the invitation can travel farther than anyone expects.
So, yes, I am proud of Namjoon. But I am also curious about the conversations this exhibition will open/has opened, the people it will bring into the museum, and the things they might discover when they get there. The point is not simply to look at what Namjoon is looking at. It is to learn how to look for ourselves.
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