BTS’s RM helps boost museum merchandise sales abroad

BTS’s RM’s influence is reaching beyond music — and into museum gift shops.

About $110,000 worth of MU:DS products were exported to be sold alongside “Between You and Me,” a special exhibition jointly organized by RM and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the National Museum Foundation of Korea said Thursday.

The order is the foundation’s biggest ever single export to an overseas museum.

MU:DS is the foundation’s museum merchandise brand, with products inspired by traditional Korean artifacts in Korean museums.

The exhibition, which runs from Saturday through Feb. 7 next year, brings together a combined 180 works from RM’s personal collection and SFMOMA’s collection. RM serves as a global ambassador for the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan District, central Seoul.

The foundation will offer 39 types of MU:DS products at the SFMOMA museum shop, notably the popular miniature Pensive Bodhisattva figures. RM owns one of the miniature figures himself. The products give the figure playful hand gestures such as a finger heart, a two-handed heart and a thumbs-up.

Other products inspired by Korean cultural heritage and artworks, such as moon jars, celadon, mother-of-pearl lacquerware and bojagi wrapping cloths, are also expected to draw interest from visitors of SFMOMA.

The initial $110,000 order marks the foundation’s largest single export to an overseas museum. The figure is 71 percent higher than the combined $64,000 in exports for exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington last year that showcased works donated by the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

MU:DS products are also being showcased at the British Museum in London during the same period.

The products are being sold in connection with a special exhibition showcasing Korean arts that runs from Thursday through Jan. 31 next year. The exhibition is the third and final stop on an overseas tour of works donated by Lee, jointly organized by the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

The exhibition features 100 works, including 10 National Treasures and 13 Treasures.

The foundation is supplying 18 types of MU:DS products to the British Museum shop to be sold alongside its "Korea" exhibition. They include merchandise inspired by artist Jeong Seon’s (1676–1759) painting of “Clearing After Rain on Mount Inwang” (1751).

Merch inspired by “Irworobongdo” (Six-Fold Screen of the Sun, Moon and Five Peaks), a folding-screen landscape used as a backdrop for kings during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), will also be available.

The lineup also includes products based on classic tiger-and-magpie paintings or hojakdo, which gained renewed attention after appearing in Netflix’s animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025).

“Korean museum merchandise is increasingly expanding its reach overseas, from North America to Europe,” said Choung Yong-suk, the CEO of the National Museum Foundation of Korea. “It is also helping introduce the appeal of Korean cultural heritage to athletes and visitors from across Asia at Korea House during the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.”

BY KANG HYE-RAN [[email protected]]