La belle France

Time to hop across the Channel again. This time there is extra fixture in the diary: to go to a totally unmemorable little town, Bourbourg, just north of Calais to see a major exhibition, if that is the right word, of Anthony Caro's. The church choir here was destroyed during the war, when a plane crashed on it. 

It has now been magnificently rebuilt, with spectacular roof beams, and Caro was asked by the French Ministry of Culture to design sculptures for this re-named Chapel of Light. His theme is The Creation and it has little to do with religion. It is more aquatic than terrestrial in design with wood, metal and terracotta sculptures filling niches, named Watering Hole, Galapagos, The Deep. etc, around the curved walls. Elsewhere, an enormous, walk-in, concrete baptismal font and other free-standing works like two wonderful wooden Tower of Morning and Tower of Evening structures which you can climb up and which give you a wonderful view of both church and chapel.

The effect is truly awesome and the experience very rewarding. Could something like that happen in England? Could some small Kent town have the imagination to commission an international artist in this manner? Unlikely.

What's more there are three more Caro exhibitions locally, one in a brand new museum in Gravelines, just across the motorway.