Image

Fred Wilson

X, 2005

Description

Maker

Fred Wilson, American
Exit Art, American, publisher

Title

X

Year

2005

Medium

Digital color chromogenic print on Duratrans©

Dimensions

Image: 47 x 44.3 cm (18 1/2 x 17 7/16 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

LL: inscribed in white (whiteout pen?): 19/50
LR: inscribed in white (whiteout pen?: Fred Wilson

Identification

Edition

19/50

Type

Credit

Gift of Exit Art

Object Number

2012.133.6.6

Exhibition History

Defying the Shadow

December 1, 2020 - December 18, 2021

Heads Up! Recent Gifts to the Collection

July 31, 2015 - January 10, 2016

This print juxtaposes a 1964 photograph of civil rights activist Malcolm X 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 Gatreau so that her hand appears draped over Malcolm X’s shoulder.

Characteristic of the artist’s better-known installation and curatorial works, this image brings together unlikely subjects to plumb issues of identity, politics, and power.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is X with the accession number of 2012.133.6.6. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

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