Jacob Aue Sobol made the images in his “Arrivals and Departures” series, published as a book in 2012 and now on view at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York through August 28, in the course of several month-long trips via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Starting in Moscow, he stopped in numerous villages along the route, and also visited Ulan Batar, Mongolia, and Beijing. Along the way, he photographed the landscapes he watched out the window, the stark accommodations in which he bedded down, and the people he met—many of whom allowed him intensely intimate access. The Denmark-born Sobol, a member of Magnum, is known for capturing raw emotion in his gritty, black-and-white images, as in his book Sabine, about the woman he fell in love with while living in a small village in Greenland, and I, Tokyo, which captures the people he encountered while living in Japan. Fans of his earlier work will recognize the same tight cropping and grainy contrast in “Arrivals and Departures,” though the series marks Sobol’s first time shooting with a digital camera. The series is also more expansive, as he was drawn to photograph wide vistas of icy fields or the mountain range that borders a village of tightly packed houses.
“Arrivals and Departures” is Sobol’s second exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery, and once again it gives the viewer a chance to see the photographer’s work anew through richly detailed prints.
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