With new project AVOIDED, Spanish artist Josep Piñol certifies the avoidance of his work and exposes the shortcomings of the voluntary carbon market as a climate compensation mechanism.
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In a gesture unprecedented in the art world, the artist Josep Piñol formally enacted the “avoidance” of his large-scale sculpture designed to function as a direct air capture. The piece was planned to be erected in Belém, Brazil, a city at the mouth of the Amazon River and host of the upcoming COP30, but the cancellation, legally executed at the Museu Tàpies in Barcelona, unexpectedly became noteworthy in its own avoidance.
Prior to its cancellation, Piñol’s project was quickly developing, with 3D models created, the land planned for acquisition, and US$21.57 million in funding raised. The original project was presented as a large, sculptural direct air capture (DAC) plant in the Amazon basin, conceived as an artistic-climatic mitigation work, and accompanied by a video with the slogan “an artwork to help the world breathe better.” The installation would have featured 100 bronze figures in business suits erected on coffins converted into CO2 capture modules. Without recognizable faces, these silhouettes alluded to a structural power: according to Carbon Majors, more than 70% of global CO2 emissions can be attributed to just 78 corporate and state producing entities.
In Barcelona, however, the process was interrupted by a decision by the artist. Piñol signed a notarized document cancelling the construction of his work, through an avoidance certificate acquired by a private collector. By halting the project planned for the Amazon, he prevented the emission of 57,765 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), registered as certified carbon credits with an estimated value of $1.7 million.
Of the total credits, the artist gifted only one accredited tonne to the buyer as a gesture related to the transaction. As part of the purchase agreement, the collector renounced any right to use, transfer, or exploit the remaining credits, instead “releasing” them to prevent speculation or use in corporate sustainability reports.
The event was curated by Roberta Bosco and presented at the closing of the Museu Habitat cycle, directed by Manuel J. Borja-Villel, former director of the Museo Reina Sofía.
A Work That Is Activated in Its Own Avoidance
On the eve of COP30 in Belém, Piñol’s avoided work is presented as a metaphor of the contemporary paradox: a certified non-materialization in which inaction becomes solution, renunciation becomes strategy and emptiness becomes commitment.
With AVOIDED, Piñol reproduces and subverts the dynamics of the voluntary carbon credit market, in particular the so-called avoided emissions: estimates of emissions that would have been released into the atmosphere, but that ultimately did not occur. Carbon credits have come under scrutiny as a mechanism for greenwashing and a way for companies and people to repent for their behavior rather than change it in a way that translates to real climate reductions.
The carbon footprint calculation was validated by Art Carbon Avoidance LLC (ACA), a new standard created to certify the environmental impact avoided by canceling artistic and cultural projects. An independent audit reviewed the ACA standard, the project’s Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), and supporting evidence. Based on this, the avoided carbon emissions were certified, enabling the issuance of Cultural Degrowth Credits (CDC) under internationally recognized methodologies.
Climate Indulgence
Piñol put up for sale the exemption of a sin: a gesture that transfers to art the same logic of indulgence that runs through climate markets. AVOIDED opens a dialogue about how conceptual gestures, absence, cancellation or emptiness can become a form of art and set a new precedent for bringing awareness to our impact on the planet.
“In times of climate emergency, not everything deserves or needs to be built: there are works that speak more in their absence than in cement and bronze,” said Piñol. “My intention has not been to capitalize on the extinction of art, but to stage the logics of the voluntary carbon market, in particular, so called avoided’ emissions.”
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About the artist: Josep Piñol (Tivenys, 1994) is a Spanish conceptual and performance artist whose recent practice explores the fissure between the languages of art and the devices of institutional legitimization, critically intervening in their frictions. His performance Santa Baldana (2024), carried out for the Ministry of Culture of Spain, sparked a strong national debate and placed him at the forefront of the cultural debate.
