New US exhibition explores power of monuments – with help from Rocky

Statue – one of city’s most popular tourist attractions – on steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art key plank of new show

A statue of Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer Rocky Balboa is the focal point of an examination of the power of monuments opening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this weekend that marks two millennia of boxing and celebrity.

The statue, placed on the “Rocky Steps” of the museum in 1982, six years after the the 1976 film Rocky made Stallone a star, is one of Philadelphia’s most popular tourist attractions, visited by an estimated 4 million people annually.