Anthony Caro, at the MFA through May. Using scraps of steel--pieces of pipe, ends of sheet-metal, bits of gridding--Caro engenders his own brilliant constructions. His sculptures render natural forms in vividly painted metal: "Prairie," for example, folds and undulates; a cornfield--but in yellow steel. The patterns of "Orangerie" belie the stasis of the dusky orange metal, seeming to move like the shadows of leaves. Caro's efforts to capture the nature of water produce some of his most interesting work: "the Deluge" transfixes waves and spray, and "Cool Deck" slides and shimmers, a silvery stream. "Early One Morning" the most intriguing piece in the show, is a step farther from nature, but still shows the artist's fascination with a growing creation.

The videotape is the antithesis of the show: the interviewer descends into banalities like: "Why did you work in such a small space?"--to which Caro, more than bored by the question, responds: "Economic necessity. Besides, it rains a lot, you know, in England."

Brush and Ink: the Heinz Gotze Collection of Japances Art, at the Fogg through June 4. Gotze's aim in assembling the collection he said, was to find examples that would illuminate what is special and different about East Asian art. Indeed, this small but stellar exhibit questions some of the fundamental assumptions of the Western viewer. Condensed to haiku precision, works like "Fly Whisk" perceive a foreign value-system in a familiar reality. The real merges disconcertingly without effort into the imaginary in the writing of "Metaphor for Buddha", or in the shifting space of Kobe Ho Shinno's "Landscape". Through the whole exhibit radiates the peace of an art which, unlike that of the West, does not strive for originality as an end-in-itself, but for some eternal essence.