Salvaged steel and a slice of countryside: Caro sculptures on show in Oxfordshire fields

Anthony Caro’s Star Flight at Albion Barn and Fields in south Oxfordshire. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Anthony Caro’s Star Flight at Albion Barn and Fields in south Oxfordshire. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Salvaged steel and a slice of countryside: Caro sculptures on show in Oxfordshire fields Visitors can get free peek at works by one of UK’s most significant 20th-century artists and one of his successors Swifts screech overhead, hares lope along the grassy paths and butterflies flutter in the woodland fringe. There is an orchard; there are chickens, beehives. It seems simply a lovely, if conventional, slice of English countryside – until you happen upon striking sculptures fashioned out of chunks of reclaimed steel or machinery parts salvaged from factories, shipyards and farms. The pieces are the stars of a show called Heavy Metal, which brings together work by one of the UK’s most significant 20th-century artists, Anthony Caro , and one of his successors, James Capper. Michael Hue-Williams, the director and owner of Albion Barn and Fields in south Oxfordshire, where Heavy Metal is on show, said he wasn’t at a fan of conventional sculpture parks. “I like the idea of suddenly seeing a sculpture emerge. You walk around for a while and just discover something wonderful as if by chance.” Those with very deep pockets can buy – Hue-Williams is a well-known and successful dealer – but ordinary lovers of art and nature are invited to take a peek for free as long as they book in and promise not to clamber over the sculptures. Caro, who died in 2013, is considered one of Britain’s most influential postwar sculptors . He was involved in the creation of the Millennium Bridge in London and is celebrated for his use of repurposed scrap metal. View image in fullscreen Erl King resembles a hulking medieval helmet. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian The show at Albion Barn includes pieces such as Erl King, in which a hefty ship’s anchor is used to create what seems to be a hulking medieval helmet. Another, Star Flight, is made out of galvanised steel. From one angle, the parish church of St James provides a backdrop; from another, the faraway Wittenham Clumps , a pair of wooded chalk hills, do the job. A third Caro, on the edge of woodland close to a barn owl nest, is made out of a cattle crush, which would have been used to hold cows when they were being examined or treated. Called Slow Passage, parts have been painted red, which Hue-Williams said reminded him of the Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian’s work. View image in fullscreen Parts of Capper’s IRIS open like a flower’s petal. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian One of the standout pieces by Capper is called IRIS, which features what appears to be a repurposed industrial “grabber”. Some of Capper’s pieces move. The grabber parts of IRIS open like a flower’s petal. A Capper sculpture inside a tractor barn converted into a gallery compri