Crystalline sugar cubes stacked like bricks on a silver platter melt sensuously, absorbing thick black liquid and crumbling into a glistening, viscous mass. Kader Attia’s video Oil and Sugar #2 marries simple materials—motor oil and sugar cubes—evoking their status as commodities carrying the weight of centuries of geopolitical competition, exploitation, and distinct cultural and political meanings. The artist describes the white cube as “the core symbol of art, of the space of art, of the institution.” Drenched in oil and rendered black, the structure evokes the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site visited by millions of pilgrims on the annual Hajj to Mecca. Once dissolved by oil, the formless mass calls to mind ongoing violence sparked by resource extraction and religious and political difference. Through a composition as beautiful as it is destructive, Oil and Sugar #2 offers a case study in contrasting colors, textures, forms, and temporal flow.