The Philadelphia Museum of Art has opened a new exhibition titled “Rising Up: Rocky & the Making of Monuments” to mark the 50th anniversary of the original Rocky film (1976) and the 250th anniversary of the United States. The show examines the Rocky statue as a monument tied to the museum and Philadelphia, featuring works by artists such as Keith Haring, Rashid Johnson, Delilah Montoya, Tavares Strachan, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, and Carrie Mae Weems. It also highlights Philadelphia's boxing history, including Joe Frazier and the Blue Horizon venue.
The exhibition matters because it uses a popular cultural icon—Rocky—to spark broader conversations about how monuments are created, contested, and reinterpreted by artists and communities over time, touching on themes of memory, identity, power, and representation in public art. It arrives amid recent leadership turmoil at the museum, underscoring the institution's continued commitment to engaging with local history and contemporary artistic discourse.