The Rocky statue will leave the base of the Art Museum on Wednesday

The great Rocky relocation of 2026 is finally upon us.

On Wednesday, Philadelphia’s famed statue of the Italian Stallion will be moved from the bottom of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and placed inside the building. The move indoors marks the statue’s first display inside the Art Museum, and comes as part of its inclusion in a forthcoming exhibition known as “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments.”

As part of the move, the base of the museum’s steps and the area around where the Rocky statue currently stands will be closed to the public Wednesday. Street lane and sidewalk closures will be put in place from Kelly Drive to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive along Spring Garden Street to facilitate the move, the Art Museum said in a statement.

The Rocky statue at the top of the steps — a loaner from actor Sylvester Stallone’s collection — will remain on display and accessible to visitors.

The city’s original Rocky statue, meanwhile, will be available for viewing inside the museum once the “Rising Up” exhibition opens April 25.

Wednesday’s Rocky rearrangement is the latest and most visible step in a plan that began making headlines in December. That month, Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office for the creative sector, proposed a plan that would move the city’s Rocky statue inside the Art Museum temporarily before permanently installing it at the top of the so-called Rocky Steps later this year.

At that point, per Creative Philadelphia’s plan, Stallone’s Rocky statue would go back into the actor’s personal collection.

The Rocky-sized void at the base of the Art Museum steps will later be filled by the city’s statue of real-life heavyweight boxing champion “Smokin’” Joe Frazier, which Creative Philadelphia proposed moving to that spot last month. The Frazier statue’s relocation date has not yet been determined, Creative Philadelphia said in a statement, though it is expected to make the move from its current home at the South Philadelphia sports complex later this year.

In its proposals, Creative Philadelphia estimated that moving and reinstalling the city’s Rocky and Frazier statues would cost about $150,000 each. The moves also made an appearance in Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s $7 billion city budget address earlier this month, with a proposal to set aside $350,000 in funding “to support the relocation of the Rocky and Joe Frazier statues.”

“Rocky will live at the top of the Art Museum steps,” Parker said.

Wednesday will mark yet another move for Philadelphia’s Rocky statue, which has been in town for more than four decades. Commissioned by Stallone for 1982’s Rocky III and donated to the city, the statue has long been something of a controversial fixture locally, having been shuttled back and forth between the Art Museum and the stadium complex in South Philly at least six times over the years.

The base of the Art Museum steps, however, has been its home since 2006, marking its most lasting location to date. And, in fact, the Rocky statue has been in that spot longer than the Frazier statue, which was unveiled in 2015, has even existed.

The city’s lack of a Frazier statue had long been considered an injustice among the boxer’s fans and supporters. Rocky, after all, is not a real person, and Philadelphia was Frazier’s longtime home, as well as the place from which he cemented his spot in boxing history.

In their presentations to the Philadelphia Art Commission, which approves public art placements, Creative Philadelphia officials expressed a desire to lean into that history. Placing the statues near each other, chief cultural officer Valerie V. Gay and public art director Marguerite Anglin said in a letter last month, would “create a respectful dialogue between two complementary representations of Philadelphia’s spirit.”

“Rocky Balboa as a symbol of hard work and aspiration, and Joe Frazier as the embodiment of those values lived out in real life,” they added.

The Rocky statue, meanwhile, has been the source of a decades-long debate over not only whether the piece itself is a work of art, but also whether it is appropriate to place it so prominently. Gay said in December that moving it to the top of the Art Museum steps was a chance to “allow art to bring our community together.”

“This is absolutely an amazing opportunity to expand our connection, our community’s connection, with art,” she said.