Abstract

Ernest Becker described society as a symbolic action system designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism. He advocates for a 'creative solution', which suggests that heroism can manifest itself objectively, through artworks. By further developing this idea, I argue that some things can become heroic when being archived or put on display. Like heroic individuals, heroic objects are privileged things that distinguish themselves among stuff that goes unnoticed, while also being the central points of earthly heroic systems. Instead, heroic objects constrain the individuals to relate to them in a specific contemplative way, gaining cult value through exhibition. This used to be the case for relics and hero remains, but also the standard metre bar, which Marcel Duchamp cleverly ridiculed, underlining the contingent nature of cultural archived truths. Therefore, after broadly discussing heroic objects, I will narrow it down to the case of the standard metre and the readymades, further developing the idea of things becoming heroic objects.