July 24, 2009 – Philip Rantzer

I walked into a doctor’s office and was bowled away by the art. Kadishman’s sheep and some other well known paintings and themes impressed me immediately. But then I saw the wall in the waiting room with six pages torn from a German science book and scribbled over and I couldn’t look away. No one else was paying attention, but the subtlety of the illustrations – an ancient discussion of the hip joint and then a kind of primitive self-portrait over it, for example – made me think of how interrelated science and autobiography and art is. So the first thing i asked the doctor when we walked in was who painted it. “Philip Rantzer,” he said. “Ah yes,” I said, “the guy with the bicycle carrying Tel Aviv.” The doctor turns to google the name with bicycle in Hebrew and finds it. I am amazed that an exhibit I saw seven years ago is still fresh in my mind. But that’s Rantzer. Once home I looked up his site here but it doesn’t do him justice. I would bet he’s due for a new exhibit soon – then we’ll see.Here’s Tel Aviv on a Bicycle. Incredibly complex, humorous and tragic, autobiographical and universal.