The Collector | K-pop’s T.O.P. has been a collector since he was 4 years old

Sotheby’s has put one of Asia’s big­gest pop stars in charge of a contempor­ary art auction in Hong Kong, a move guaranteed to get more than a few screaming fans to attend its October sales. In fact, the auction house is so blatantly tapping the appeal of T.O.P. (real name Choi Seung-hyun) that it has named the October 3 sale #TTTOP, after the Big Bang star’s Instagram handle. All 5.5 million of his followers will see every single update about the sale.

Since the news was announced in July, auction regulars have been wondering just how much a rapper from a South Korean boy band could know about art, and how such an outsider decides what to put in an auction. After all, it is up to the owner of a particular piece of work whether they sell or not and up to the auction house specialists to convince them to do so.

In an interview with Post Magazine , Choi says he has always been a compulsive collector.

“I started collecting when I was four years old. Lego blocks to begin with and, later, sneakers. I was an anxious child and seeing lots of things with similar forms calmed me. When I was 18 and started earning money from the band, I began to collect designer furniture because I found the architectural beauty of the lines to be healing. And then I discovered art,” he says, through a translator.

He says his taste reflects what young Asian collectors like. Nationality counts for little. He collects blue-chip names as well as emerging artists such as Tomoo Gokita, Jina Park and He Xiangyu, who are all featured in the sale, along­side artists such as Kim Whan-ki, Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan, Chung Sanghwa and Nam June Paik.