The Philadelphia Museum of Art has opened a new exhibition titled "Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments," which uses the iconic Rocky Balboa statue as a focal point to explore the power and meaning of monuments across two millennia of boxing and celebrity culture. Curated by Paul Farber, co-founder of Monument Lab, the show features ancient sculptures, 19th-century works, images from boxing's golden age, and contemporary pieces by artists including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Glenn Ligon. The Rocky statue, placed on the museum's steps in 1982, attracts an estimated 4 million visitors annually, rivaling the Statue of Liberty.
The exhibition matters because it addresses the ongoing cultural and political friction surrounding monuments, asking why millions of people from around the world continue to flock to a statue of a fictional white boxer while many real Black Philadelphia boxers remain less celebrated. By examining the Rocky statue as a "cultural meeting ground" and a site of global pilgrimage, the show engages with broader questions of representation, memory, and who gets commemorated in public space. The timing coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Rocky franchise, and the exhibition includes input from Sylvester Stallone himself, who left the curator voicemails reflecting on the statue's significance.