From September 19 to November 2, 2025, the Architecture Archive Center of MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, will host the exhibition “The Deposition of the Void” by Nicola Di Giorgio. The artist is the winner of the 8th edition of the Graziadei Prize for Photography.
The exhibition will feature Di Giorgio’s winning project alongside a summary of works by past winners from 2012 to the present, all of which have since become part of the museum’s permanent collection. The Graziadei Prize was established in 2012 by Graziadei Law Firm, which has been a partner of MAXXI’s programming since 2019.
Nicola Di Giorgio (b. Palermo, 1994) is an artist who lives and works between Milan and Palermo. A graduate in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, he specialized in Photography at ISIA in Urbino. His research focuses on the relationship between the urban landscape and living, analyzing transformations in the public and private spheres. He is a winner of the Graziadei Prize at MAXXI (2022), a finalist for the Fabbri Prize (2022), and was selected for Futures (2023).
For “The Deposition of the Void,” Di Giorgio continues the research he began in 2020 with “Calcestruzzo” (Concrete), the project that won him the prize. The photographer confronts the theme of land consumption and cementification in the Italian landscape, a journey that spans from the infamous “Vele” housing estate in Scampia to a film dedicated to the 2002 incident involving one of the world’s most imposing reinforced concrete structures, the Pirelli skyscraper.
The Graziadei Prize for Photography supports and promotes young Italian authors. Its current format involves an open call for photographers under 35, who submit a recent project to be evaluated by a jury of curators and photographers. The winner is invited to use the award to continue their research and produce a new project. This new work is then exhibited the following year alongside the next winner’s project, creating a relay and a dialogue between young photographers.
Thanks to the support of Graziadei Law Firm, the MAXXI Architecture and Contemporary Design Photography Collection has been enriched with over 50 works by 10 artists, including Andrea Botto, Francesco Neri, and Alba Zari, in addition to Nicola Di Giorgio.