"(…)Fatmi’s sculpture (and photographic series) Brainteaser for Moderate Muslim/Casse-tête pour musulman modéré, 2004 (2009) engages Islam’s most iconic piece of architecture, the Kaaba at Mecca. For this work, Fatmi arranged four black Rubik’s cubes, each ringed with an identifying band of white, at various stages of manipulation. Also engaging a toy version of the Kaaba, Fatmi’s video Manipulations, 2004 presents a pair of hands, blackened with viscous oil, manoeuvring one of the artist’s two-tone Rubik’s cubes. The relentless handling of the blackened cube becomes a symbol of the faithful Muslim’s ritual circumambulations of the Abrahamic site. Meanwhile, the video’s soundtrack pulses with a sound like a beating metal heart, accelerating as the solution approaches. As the image blurs, Fatmi flashes archival footage of pilgrims making one of seven ritual revolutions around the cuboid building at Mecca. The Rubik’s cube disappears in the last moments of the video as the coated hands continue to rub together, stained. (…)"

Lillian Davies, Excerpt from Suspect Language, Skira, 2012.