BTS's RM visits Yun Hyong-keun exhibition

RM, the leader of the K-pop boy band BTS, visited the "Memories of Yun Hyong-keun" exhibition on its opening day and uploaded photos on the official BTS Twitter account, proving that he is a real fan of Yun (1928-2007), a master of dansaekhwa..

RM stands beside a painting by artist Yun Hyong-keun at PKM Gallery. [BTS OFFICIAL TWITTER]

RM, the leader of the K-pop boy band BTS, visited the “Memories of Yun Hyong-keun” exhibition on its opening day and uploaded photos on the official BTS Twitter account, proving that he is a real fan of Yun (1928-2007), a master of dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome painting.

The show opened on Friday at PKM Gallery in central Seoul to celebrate a new book titled “Memories of Yun Hyong-keun,” which focuses on the artist’s writing and drawings on his notes, letters and drawing books. The exhibition showcases the related drawings and archives.

RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, uploaded four photos including one of himself standing beside a large painting by Yun and others showing Yun’s drawings and writings. It is not the first time the pop star has expressed love for Yun. RM visited the 2019 retrospective of Yun at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, Italy and uploaded photos.

Yun is renowned for his “Umber & Blue” series, which hover between Western abstract painting and East Asian ink calligraphy. Yun began to develop the series in 1973, after being persecuted, imprisoned and blacklisted by the Park Chung Hee regime. He used light-brown raw canvases with wide brush strokes in dark oil paint that remind viewers of meok or traditional East Asian black ink, which he made by mixing umber and blue paint with oil of terebinth.

Yun called his paintings “the gate of heaven and earth.”

“Blue is the color of heaven, while umber is the color of the earth,” Yun wrote in his diary in 1977. “Thus. I call them ‘heaven and earth’ with the gate serving as the composition.”

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [moon.soyoung@joongang.co.kr]