An iconic statue synonymous with Philadelphia has been relocated.
During the statue’s move on Wednesday, the museum steps and the area around the statue were closed to the public for safety. Temporary street lane and sidewalk closures were also in effect along Spring Garden Street between Kelly Drive and MLK Drive.
According to an NBC10 Philadelphia report, visitors will still be able to see Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky statue, which he loaned to the city from his private collection, at the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum steps. Beginning April 25, visitors can also step inside the museum to see the city’s Rocky statue within the new exhibition.
Following the exhibition’s closing in August, the museum will move the city’s statue to the top of the museum steps, where it will be permanently housed. Stallone’s Rocky statue at the Philadelphia Art Museum will also be returned to him.
“I am honored to curate this exhibition in my hometown at this moment of cultural urgency and much-needed public discourse,” guest curator Paul Farber said in a press release shared with the Bucks County Courier Times. Farber is the director and co-founder of Monument Lab. “The steps outside the museum are a site of pilgrimage and the ultimate people’s pedestal. ‘Rising Up’ asks why millions of people each year visit a statue of the most famous Philadelphian who never lived as a way to better understand our complex and vital relationships to our public monuments.”