Philadelphia Museum of Art Launches “Rising Up” Exhibition, Permanently Welcomes Rocky Statue

The museum opened the exhibition “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments” this weekend. Guest curator Paul Farber, who spent years researching the statue’s cultural resonance on NPR podcasts, assembled a show that traces more than 2,000 years of boxing imagery and situates the bronze Rocky Balboa figure—sculpted by A. Thomas Schomberg and on loan from Sylvester Stallone—within art history and Philadelphia’s civic identity.

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Deputy director of curatorial affairs Louis Marchesano frames the exhibition as a study of endurance, internal fortitude and internal struggle. The show pairs 1970s boxing fever with works by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and adds a Philadelphia-focused gallery featuring photographs of the Blue Horizon gym and a tribute to Joe Frazier, whose real-life story partly inspired Rocky.

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About 4 million people climb the museum’s steps each year, rivaling the Liberty Bell’s foot traffic. International visitors—including French wrestling coach David Muller, Polish tourist Kate Tarchalska and Indian-American student Suraj Kumar—describe the statue as a motivational landmark that links personal perseverance with a globally recognized pop-culture icon.

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Louis Marchesano said the museum now treats the statue as a conduit for exploring universal themes of struggle that recur across millennia of boxing art. He noted that the exhibition’s focus on 1970s boxing enthusiasm and Philadelphia’s own boxing heritage positions Rocky as a cultural bridge between sport and visual art.

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Earlier museum leadership opposed a permanent Rocky presence, arguing that devotion to a fictional boxer could dilute the institution’s curatorial focus. The museum’s initial attempts to remove the sculpture reflected broader hesitation to integrate popular culture into its traditional collections.

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• “The common theme that runs throughout 2,000 years of boxing imagery is that people respond to the body under struggle, a conflict in much the same way today as they did 2,500 years ago,” — Louis Marchesano, Deputy Director, Philadelphia Museum of Art

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• “The museum has had — and I hate to say this, no pun intended — a rocky relationship with the statue,” — Louis Marchesano

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• “The movie ‘Rocky’ is important for the mind of sport and the mind of life,” — David Muller, Wrestling Coach, France

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• “And now I am so glad I could be in the same spot as him.” — Kate Tarchalska, Visitor, Poland

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The exhibition closes in August. At that point the Rocky statue will be installed permanently at the top of the museum’s steps, while a new statue of Joe Frazier will occupy the bottom position, ensuring the former spot remains filled.

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