In a moment of reckoning and reimagining for monuments, why do millions of people from around the world visit the Rocky statue by the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art?
The exhibition, “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments,” opening April 25, 2026 and running through the summer, will respond to this central question while exploring the creation, context, and communities that orbit around Philadelphia’s iconic Rocky statue. Timed to align with the 50th anniversary of the Rocky film franchise, the exhibition will examine why societies often root for the “underdog,” a figure in our collective imagination.
SAVE THE DATE for our film screening: July 26, 2026
Organized by guest curator Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab and host of the acclaimed podcast The Statue from NPR/WHYY, Rising Up will offer an art history of the Rocky statue, unpacking how this movie prop ultimately turned into a public art piece and site of global pilgrimage. The exhibition will showcase over 150 works by more than 50 artists and artifacts spanning more than 2,000 years in an investigation of the changing role of monuments across time. Blending the worlds of art, sports, and popular culture, Rising Up takes on the life of monuments by exploring the profound meanings and mythologies of the Rocky statue.
SAVE THE DATE for our film screening: July 26, 2026
Bernard Hopkins (2005) by artist Eric Okdeh was located inside the State Correctional Institution at Graterford in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. This inspirational mural depicts Bernard Hopkins’ transformation from prisoner to middleweight boxing champion. The mural was painted by incarcerated artists of the Mural Arts program and installed in the gymnasium at Graterford, where it was on view until Graterford’s closure in 2018.
As a young adult Hopkins served nearly five years at the maximum-security state prison. At Graterford, he continued his Boxing training and further developed his disciplined, defensive style. The Philadelphia native was released when he was 22 years old. At the dedication for the mural, Hopkins returned to the prison and told the community that he was grateful to be their example but urged them all to be examples to their own families and friends. To pay tribute to these artists and their stories, the current Mural Arts program at SCI Phoenix (Graterford’s successor organization), fifteen artists serving life-sentences, have painted a replication of the original mural for the Rising Up: Rocky exhibition.
Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location and not accessible for public viewing (SCI Graterford permanently closed 2018).
About the artists
Eric Okdeh is a Philadelphia based muralist who has been creating public art since 1998. After receiving his BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Eric chose to focus on public art exclusively. Since 2002, in addition to his commissioned work, Eric has taught mural making classes to children and teens throughout the city as well as incarcerated artists at SCI Graterford. Eric finds that the most successful murals provide a sense of inclusion and accomplishment among its participants, empowering them to take ownership in the work. Eric has over 80 public art commissions throughout Philadelphia, as well as murals in Wailuku, Hawaii, Seville, Spain, and Amman, Jordan. His work is featured in seven books about public and mural art.
This mural was produced with the following artists from SCI Phoenix:
Al “Lito” Collantes
Charles “Chuck” Harrison
Charles “Zafir” Lawson
Felix “Freddie” Rodriguez
James “Black” Green
Keith “Butu” Andrews
Lee “Fox” Anthony
Robert E. Rigler
Rodney Moore
Roy Holloway
Shelton “Tyrik” Alford
Thomas Schilk
Jose “Chino” Benesario-Nieves
Albert “Tank” Perez, and
Vincent “Black” Hatcher; managed by Phoebe Bachman and Kali Silverman
Mural Arts and SCI Graterford
Mural Arts Philadelphia has been providing art classes at SCI Graterford and its successor facility SCI Phoenix for over twenty years. In 2002, executive director Jane Golden was invited by art therapist Will Ursprung to speak to the art class at SCI Graterford. The talk was very popular. Jane thought, “What more can we do?” In 2003, Mural Arts began working with the art class to paint small murals inside the facility. Witnessing the great talent of the class, and in response to the participants’ desire to give back to communities they had harmed, Jane advocated with prison officials at the state level to create a “works” program whereby participants in the art class would be paid a modest hourly wage to create murals. Together with professional muralists Cesar Viveros and Parris Stancell, the class completed its first major public commission, Healing Walls, in 2004. The parachute cloth technique, a portable method of mural making that Mural Arts learned from renowned muralist and mentor Kent Twitchell was, and is, a key component in this process. To date, participants in the mural class at SCI Graterford (now SCI Phoenix) have contributed to over 50 murals that have been gifted to neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia. You can view these murals and more within the SCI Graterford collection of the Public Art Archive: https://www.publicartarchive.org/collections/SCI-Graterford-Archive
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