It is a match made in social media heaven. The British pop sensation Adele, the world’s most popular recording artist, was recently filmed singing inside an installation by Yayoi Kusama, the world’s most popular visual artist. Adele performed her song When We Were Young inside Kusama’s Infinity Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013) at the Broad in Los Angeles. The footage became the backdrop for her performance at the Brit Awards on 24 February, where the singer took home four trophies. (The performance was heralded as a comeback after a microphone malfunction at the Grammys, and the video is a definite improvement on another recent visual art cameo: Drake’s disappointing homage to Turrell.)
Adele first encountered Kusama’s mirrored installation in a profoundly 21st-century way: an Instagram post by fellow pop star Katy Perry. “I was so blown away by the photograph—I had no idea what it was,” she said in a video posted by the Broad. The installation seemed like a fitting setting for the song because “you see different versions of yourself from every angle, and When We Were Young is kind of based on my life from childhood up to now,” Adele said.
While most visitors are only permitted to remain inside the Broad’s Infinity Room for one minute, Adele had a more durational experience. “I definitely felt like standing in that room for an hour, I saw things in myself and of myself that I haven’t noticed before,” she said.