Allì, sin ser un lugar determinado, ni aleatorio; Como el puro ser donde no hay nada: Pablo Dávila

“Unborn and undying,
Neither permanent nor annihilated
Neither the same nor different,
Neither coming nor going.”
The Eight Negations, Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā

T H E P I L L® is thrilled to present Mexican artist Pablo Dávila’s first solo exhibition in Paris, opening on October 18, 2025. Titled Allì, sin ser un lugar determinado, ni aleatorio; Como el puro ser donde no hay nada [There, a place neither precise nor random; Like pure being where there is nothing], the exhibition presents a series of material propositions exploring the phenomenology of space through emergent forms perceived as events appearing in time and space.

Drawing inspiration from the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna’s concept of the emptiness of all things, Dávila approaches space as a conceptual imputation: a name we give to relational potential in the absence of direct contact. Far from a nihilistic notion of non-existence or deprivation, this understanding of emptiness articulates the interconnectedness of all things, the incessant flux of phenomena, and how human thought and life emerge interdependently within both natural and social worlds.

Each sculpture in the exhibition enacts a different facet of space as emptiness, relation, and impermanence, rehearsing time-space events through a form of negative thinking. Beyond their immediate material presence, Dávila’s artistic gestures lie in setting the temporal and spatial parameters for contingencies of sound, rhythm, and movement—conditions through which events arise as perceptible phenomena.

In Encuentran Un Lugar En El Mundo (Y Dudan En Otro Mundo) [They Find a Place in the World (And Doubt in Another World)], an ever-shifting soundscape of radios tuning in and out of frequencies renders space audible as a field of relational flux, materializing relational phenomena such as interference, emergence, and disappearance as processes of dependent arising. Esperan En Lugares Donde Viven Mientras Esperan [They Wait While They Live Where They Wait] proposes a speculative cube, perceptible only through the void between thousands of suspended elements held in tension with open air. Designated by Dávila as a “thing” only insofar as it unravels in the viewer’s mind, the work suggests a geometry of waiting—being held by emptiness. Connecting the exhibition to cosmic time and to the conditions of our existence, El Escenario Se Coloca y Se Retira [The Stage Is Set And Removed] offers a countdown centered on the Sun’s current age and the time remaining from its projected lifespan: We are contained within a duration that also fades. The cosmic stage is set, and then withdrawn.