One Ton III takes as its starting point an image of the Morteratsch glacier made in 1879 by the Swiss photographer and mountaineer Jules Beck. Now housed at the Swiss Alpine Museum, this image of the celebrated but fast-disappearing glacier, has been progressively retouched and then printed in a series of five unique platinum palladium prints which, step by step, return the image to its original, dirt and dust free, pristine state.

Jules Beck’s image of the glacier has been returned to the Upper Engadine following a four-day long, low-carbon journey of 318 km from its contemporary source – the archive in Bern.  On arrival at its destination, the trailer of a purpose-built, hybrid, transport/display system – developed specifically for the nationwide exhibition Watch the Glacier Disappear – has been up-ended and extended, creating a space to exhibit the five contemporary reprints of the 19th century original.

One of a series of works made by the artist in the past 20 years that relate traditional forms of photographic image making to their raw materials, One Ton III utilises a quantity of platinum group metals. Conflating the photographic with the sculptural, the 3 grams of platinum and palladium used in the realisation of the five prints of Jules Beck’s Morteratsch image necessitated the extraction of one ton of ore from a platinum mine.

Simon Starling (b. 1967) studied at Maidstone College of Art, Trent Polytechnic Nottingham and Glasgow School of Art. Considered one of the most audacious British artists on the international scene, he won the Turner Prize in 2005. Starling also served as professor of fine arts at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. He lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin.

The project was realised in collaboration with: 31 Studio, Horsley, Sculpture and Design, Glasgow, Kinetics, Glasgow, Karl Isakson, Copenhagen, Peer Klausen, Copenhagen, Swiss Alpine Museum, Bern, Maxime Sauce, Copenhagen, Jason Klimatsas, Zürich, and Jörg Koopmann, Munich. With special thanks to Rudi Bechtler, Ludovic Varone and Anita Mischler.