Battenberg by Brian Griffiths

The Battenberg cake was invented on the advent of the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter – Princess Victoria of Hesse – to Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884. As such, the pink and yellow cake is a humble commemoration of the Victorian era and a link with a British past that has slowly crumbled. Yet this past still influences contemporary life, not least in our cities where we are surrounded by Victorian public sculpture. Increased to gigantic proportion, fashioned from a selection of traditionally made household bricks and placed on a plinth alongside other Victorian statues in Trafalgar Square, the cake becomes a wry monument to monumentality. It highlights a much-changed contemporary Britain while gently questioning the role of contemporary art in today’s late capitalist society where our perception of culture is as a consumer experience.

Listen to Brian Griffiths talking about the work

Artist biography

Brian Griffiths studied at Goldsmiths College in the late '90s. His sculptural works, three dimensional collages and installations have qualities of overt theatricality and pathos. His work has been exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. He has had solo shows at Camden Arts Centre, Arnolfini, A Foundation Vilma Gold, Galeria Luisa Strina and internationally has shown work at numerous museums including the Groninger Museum in the Netherands, The Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh, CAPC museum in Bordeaux, Mostra D’Arte Contemporanea in Milan and Belém Museum of Modern Art, Brazil.

Brian Griffiths is represented by Vilma Gold, London and Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo. He is presently lecturer in Fine Art at the Royal Academy Schools, London. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1968 and lives and works in London.