There is a lighting system in the frame that allows the transparent work to be illuminated. Additional impressions are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of of Fine Art, Pennsylvania, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
X juxtaposes a 1964 photograph of Civil Rights activist Malcolm X by photographer Marion S. Trikosko with the 1884 painting Madame X by John Singer Sargent. The photograph captures Malcolm X in a contemplative moment at a press conference for Martin Luther King, Jr. Obscuring the spatial relationship between the two figures, Wilson superimposed Sargent's rendition of Parisian socialite Madame Gautreau so that her hand appears draped over Malcolm X's shoulder. The combined image is then inverted in color; both figures are depicted as negative images. Wilson's work raises the issues of representation in art: the idea of a traditionally accepted "canon" of art and how the technical processes used to produce works of photography impact representation as well as contrasting matters of identity, politics, and power.
