Magnificent six

Anyone who goes into the Annely Juda Gallery in Dering Street expecting something like those light, airy, weight-denying abstract steel sculptures, painted bright red all over perhaps, like the Tate’s song-evoking ‘Early One Morning’, 1962, is in for a big surprise. All works shown here stand with absolute, resolute, broad-based firmness as if to proclaim that they are what they are. ‘Jupiter’, for example, made in 2005, boasts some nine points of contact with the floor. Caro famously shed the need for a pedestal over 40 years ago and this decision continues to add a certain strength of identity to his sculptures. Self-contained strength is what most of his recent works assert. There is often a delightful individuality but there are sombre elements as well. All but one of the works shown are made of steel galvanised in zinc and this, too, is a departure. Light reflects off these silvery surfaces in a special, variable way.