PHILADELPHIA — Every day, visitors from around the world make their way up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not necessarily to the galleries inside, but to visit a statue of a fictional boxer from South Philadelphia.
Bronze statue of Rocky Balboa – arms raised in victory, wearing boxing shorts and boots – has become a point of pilgrimage for people all over the world.
For decades, the museum maintained an uncomfortable distance from this kind of devotion. Now, she hugs him and invites Rocky to join him.
Opening this weekend, “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments” examines how a fictional fighter became a real-world symbol, placing the statue within the realm of art history and Philadelphia’s identity. The exhibition is the brainchild of guest curator Paul Farber, who spent years exploring the meaning of the statue and its public monuments — including through his podcasts on NPR — before taking the conversation to the museum.
The exhibition spans more than 2,000 years of boxing imagery, tracing a thread of human struggle that Luis Marchesano, the museum’s deputy director for curatorial and preservation, said helps explain Rocky’s enduring appeal.
“The common theme running throughout 2,000 years of boxing imagery is that people respond to a body experiencing conflict, a struggle, in the same way they did today 2,500 years ago,” Marchesano said. “It’s not just about watching two people beat each other up, it’s about endurance, inner fortitude and inner struggle.”
When the bronze statue was left on the stairs after the “Rocky” films were filmed, the museum struggled to remove it. It was eventually moved to South Philadelphia before returning down the steps in 2006. It was welcomed back, but never fully embraced. The city owns the place where the statue is located, not the museum.
“The museum has had a — and I hate to say it, no pun intended — a tense relationship with the statue,” Marchesano said.
“It took us decades to adapt to this,” he added. “But I’m glad we did it.”
According to the Philadelphia Visitors Center, about 4 million people visit the steps each year, which rivals the neighboring Liberty Bell in annual foot traffic.
David Mueller, a wrestling coach from France who recently brought his students to the grades, said he believes Balboa’s trials and travails are “good for the next generation.”
“The movie ‘Rocky’ is important for the sports mind and the life mind,” Mueller said after he ran with them up the stairs as they raised their hands up, smiling and punching the air like boxers.
Kate Tarchalska traveled from Poland with her family and made the statue one of their stops.
“He was my hero when I was younger,” she said. “And now I am very happy that I can be in the same place with him.”
Suraj Kumar, who was visiting his aunt in Philadelphia from St. Louis, was keen to photograph the statue to share with his father, who first introduced him to films when he was growing up in Bengaluru, India.
“When I found out this statue was here, I said, ‘I really have to come here,’” he said.
One exhibition places Rocky in the international boxing fever of the 1970s, featuring works by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol – all created during a period when boxing was receiving global attention.
“In the 1970s, we knew minute by minute who the heavyweight champion of the world was,” Marchisano said. “The artists in this exhibition are responding to this global frenzy. Sylvester Stallone, in ‘Rocky,’ was doing the same thing — thinking about internal and external conflict.”
Another exhibit heads to Philadelphia itself, showing photos of the Blue Horizon boxing gym and a section on Joe Frazier, whose real-life story at least partly inspired Rocky.
“Without Joe Frazier, Rocky doesn’t exist,” Marchisano said.
When the exhibition closes in August, the sculpture inside will move to a permanent home at the top of the museum’s steps — a place it has never officially held before. The statue currently outside remains on loan from Stallone.
Rocky’s old spot at the bottom of the stairs will be empty, and a statue of Frasier will take its place.