West Coast Premiere Betacam Projection Dreams come in color and black-and-white. The color ones claim verisimilitude. They are the full-spectrum masquerade of trauma. But the black-and-white ones come from a deeper place, the depths where profundity lies. Bill Viola's impressive new work The Passing is a dream of death and rebirth told in gray scales. At first glance, we see a twilight 'scape broken by Viola's ailing mother in decline from a lingering illness. The dreamer's fitful sleep is disturbed by such things as a glistening infant still damp from its natal journey, a skeletal tree jutting from stark terrain, bodies thrashing in aqueous folds of water. The Passing moves forward with the logic of dream, seemingly unmotivated yet suffused with meaning. To heighten this sense, Viola trods the very periphery of the visible. Captivating images dwell on a dim threshold, barely decipherable. The desire for resolution lures one into a recognition of their ancient origins. Viola's hallmark concerns, the phenomenology of looking, the meticulous commitment to the image, the location of the spirit, arise like familiar apparitions. But an equal preoccupation with the transitory nature of being has gained new prominence in his work. It seems the sad death of Viola's mother has directed the artist's explorations into an area of resonant emotion. Deeply moving, The Passing suggests that filial love takes you into the darker depths, but that same love brings you back to the world. This compelling work by one of America's premier video artists will be around for a long time. --Steve Seid