📌 Kim Namjoon & Art — A Living Dossier
Special feature by AssuntoBTS.
When we talk about art and pop culture, few modern names bridge these two worlds like Kim Namjoon, better known as RM of BTS. More than just the charismatic leader of one of the biggest musical acts on the planet, Namjoon is quietly a curator, promoter, collector, and advocate of contemporary art — both Korean and global. His journey shows how art can be a language, a refuge, a bridge between generations — and an invitation to pause and contemplate in times of haste.
👤 Who is Kim Namjoon?
Kim Namjoon was born on September 12, 1994, in South Korea. Known worldwide as RM, he is a rapper, songwriter, producer, and leader of BTS. But his image goes far beyond the stage: a polyglot, an avid reader, a philosophical lyricist, a speaker of memorable speeches (including at the UN) — and an art lover.
🎨 What is art? Namjoon’s perspective.
For Namjoon, art is not just a gallery piece. It’s a sensitive language — a way to record thoughts that don’t fit into words or melodies alone. It’s a mirror and a refuge, a way to understand the world and one’s place within it.
In interviews, he has described museums as “places of peace, wholeness, and healing” — spaces where silence speaks louder, where every painting or sculpture whispers different answers to whoever is willing to look. For him, art should not be elitist or untouchable, but lived by everyone, regardless of age, profession, or language.
His habit of visiting museums has become so iconic that fans coined the term #Namjooning: describing the act of contemplating art, strolling through a gallery, sitting on a park bench, reading a book, jotting down stray thoughts — small gestures that slow down time and bring the observer closer to themselves.
On social media, RM turns every museum photo into a silent invitation: “Come see too.” With brief captions, he points out exhibitions, shares catalogues, and posts poetic reflections. Without trying, he transformed a personal habit into a collective movement — thousands of young people began visiting museums for the first time, inspired by his simple yet meaningful posts.
For Namjoon, a work of art does not end at the frame — it ends in the eyes of the beholder. So each visit, each donation, each audio guide he records is also a way of saying: “Art belongs to all of us. Touch it with your eyes. Breathe it with an open heart.”
🎶 Is music art?
For Kim Namjoon, art starts with sound. Before becoming a quiet gallery-goer, he was — and still is — a builder of worlds through words, beats, and sonic imagery. For many critics, his discography is an extension of a visual and philosophical diary, packed with references spanning philosophy, painting, poetry, and psychoanalysis.
🎼 Lyrics as poetic paintings
From his earliest mixtapes to BTS albums and solo projects, Namjoon shows a rare gift: turning inner experiences into verbal landscapes.
Lyrics like Reflection, Trivia: Love, Forever Rain, or Tokyo are true introspective canvases, each verse a brushstroke of confession.
His words touch on loneliness, the passage of time, existential crises — all expressed through metaphors that feel like brushes and colors.
Many tracks are filled with images of rain, the sea, the sky — elements that evoke visual sensations and moods, as if his songs were an open-air exhibition.
💿 Albums & Solos: Mono and Indigo
• Mono (2018): Described by Namjoon himself as a playlist, Mono is considered a sonic visual album. Its tracks evoke grey moods, damp landscapes, empty streets — like a minimalist Korean painting.
Forever Rain, the lead track, has a black-and-white animated video, drawn by hand like an artist’s sketchbook brought to life.
• Indigo (2022): His most overtly artistic work. Each track nods to a work of art, an artist, or a tangible landscape. He described Indigo as “a diary of my colors from 2019 to 2022.”
Special guests (Erykah Badu, Anderson .Paak, Tablo) reinforce the multicultural vibe. The album makes direct reference to painter Yun Hyong-keun, a master of Korean abstract art — the cover evokes the tones and textures of his canvases.
🖼️ Declared artistic references
Namjoon never hides his sources. In interviews, posts, and captions, he mentions:
• Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art, who believed that “colors have sound.”
• Kim Whanki (or Whanki Kim), one of the Korean painters RM admires most — his minimalist, blue-toned works often appear in the background of Namjoon’s photos.
• Cy Twombly, famous for scribbled lines and paintings that look like unfinished pages of poetry.
• In Change pt.2, the layers of sound and silence echo the same principle of unfinished art.
🎥 Music videos: photography and cinematic narrative
RM’s music video aesthetic extends his vision:
— In Forever Rain, the black-and-white animation recalls Japanese sketchbooks.
— In Wild Flower, the video bursts with natural imagery: petals, open fields, fireworks, and flowers that symbolize a canvas in combustion. Living art.
Even in BTS videos, there are visual influences: Spring Day is an example, with subtle nods to British photographer Martin Parr and the film Snowpiercer.
Persona and Interlude: Shadow use gallery-like sets — empty halls, mirrors, white walls — museum architecture shaping the stage.
Tip: If you want to see and hear this fusion, start here:
— Indigo (2022): each track is a room in a sonic gallery.
— Mono (2018): a poetic walk, perfect for grey days.
— Forever Rain (MV): minimalist animation, pure poetry.
— Wild Flower feat. Youjeen: a visual explosion turned landscape.
💜 Extra curiosity
Many fans say they listen to RM with a notebook in hand, jotting down references to look up later: Who is Kim Whanki? Why “Indigo”? What does Mono mean? That’s the power of his art: it doesn’t end in music — it opens doors to painting, literature, philosophy, architecture. For Namjoon, every song is a gallery. Every verse, an open frame. Every beat, a color that breathes.
📚 CATEGORY 2 — Books: The Art of Words
Above all, Namjoon is a voracious reader. His followers know: if he’s not composing, recording, or strolling silently through a gallery, he’s probably got a book on his lap — whether on a park bench, in a museum, or at a café while traveling.
Online, he turns reading into a collective invitation: photographing book covers, highlighting excerpts, captioning photos with underlined quotes, sharing lines like fragments of a poetic mural. It’s his quiet way of saying, “Read with me.”
👨🏻🏫 What does Namjoon read? What’s on RM’s shelf (or in his backpack)?
Eastern and Western literature: from classic and contemporary Korean authors to European novelists, Japanese poetry, Greek philosophy.
• Contemporary Korean poetry: his true passion. Among his favorites is Kim Hwang-gi (also a painter, and a constant visual reference) and poets who explore impermanence, everyday life, and silence.
• Philosophical essays: Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Byung-Chul Han — ideas about time, liquid modernity, digital loneliness.
• Short prose and diaries: RM likes books that feel like confidences — letters, memoirs, fragments.
📖 Books as part of the aesthetic?
More than just reading, he turns books into images:
• Snaps covers lying on tables, mixed with museum tickets, dried flowers, or travel stubs.
• Posts photos of marked pages, folded corners, discreet notes.
In many of these posts, the book shares space with art: reading on a gallery floor, sitting on a museum hallway bench — where text meets painting, sound meets silence.
🎧 Books that become music!
Many of Namjoon’s lyrics directly trace back to his reading:
— In Intro: Persona, he cites Carl Jung, using the concept of the “persona” as a social mask.
— In Trivia: Love, he plays with linguistic meanings, like reading a semiotic treatise.
— In Mono, there are references to Bashō (Japanese poet) in his minimalist imagery, like musical haikus.
📖 Recommendations & impact
When RM posts a book, sales soar — Korean bookstores have reported the “Namjoon effect,” similar to Oprah’s Book Club effect in the West.
He doesn’t just read: he opens doors. Fans have shared stories of studying Korean poetry, philosophy, or seeking translations of Eastern authors because of a single photo RM posted.
🌙 A reader inside museums
Some of his most symbolic images combine book + museum + silence. It’s almost his signature:
— Sitting on a bench, reading in front of a canvas.
— Leaning on a sculpture, flipping pages as if extending the dialogue between artwork and word.
— Sometimes reading poems in their original language — absorbing each syllable like contemplating a painting.
✏️ More than a habit — a manifesto
For Namjoon, reading is also living art: a way to resist haste, slow the gaze, open doors to the inner world. That’s why when fans created #Namjooning, books were there too: symbols of quiet, introspection, and shared moments.
Namjoon reads to write better. He writes to live better. He lives to make words a bridge between those who feel and those who listen.
📚 Selection of Books Recommended by Kim Namjoon
Here’s a small glimpse into RM’s silent bookshelf — works he has mentioned, photographed, captioned, or recommended in interviews. Each title reveals something of his personality: contemplative, philosophical, restless, human:
[The list of 19 books can be kept as is, as titles and summaries are clear for an English reader.]
Part 2: Coming next!
💡 Want to #Namjoon too? 📍 Visit a local museum 📍 Read a book of Korean poetry — start with Kim Hwang-gi, RM’s favorite 📍 Listen to Indigo — each track is a sonic painting 📍 Share a photo contemplating art with the hashtag #Namjooning
Kim Namjoon proves that art, music, and culture are not separate boxes. In his journey, everything is language: a visual poem, a painted song, a photo that breathes silence.
While the world speeds up, RM reminds us: “To slow down is also to create art.”
