Heroes Portrait Collection
The online Heroes Museum presents the iconic faces of contemporary visual culture and recent history as part of our media environment. From Saddam Hussein to Mickey Mouse, from Kim Kardashian to Mahatma Ghandi; faces of fame and infamy we know by heart, that are branded in our brain and collective consciousness. The obsessively collected portraits on heroesmuseum.online are a sight for sore eyes, a database of familiarity good, glorious and debatable.
HALL OF FAME
The selection criteria are clear: which face, which personality, which personage, has become so iconic it is justifiably part of the overall media age we live in? These faces enchant and beguile us by their unique face value as brands, representing ideas, power structures, values and comfort. And horrific global history, Hollywood escapism, unrealistic beauty standards, cultish followings and fan boy devotion. Iconic faces: the good, the bad, the horribly over appreciated, the omnipresent in our media age. Face value is what counts. This is clearly the hall of fame.
UNIQUE MUSEUM COLLECTION
In our age of constant connectivity, smart phones in relentless news update mode, we spend hours upon hours taking in mainstream media content where repetition comes to hypnotize us. In time these faces become iconic no matter who or what they represent. As icons of the time the online Heroes Museum presents a unique dynamic portrait collection representing our visual culture.
Museums are archaic bastions of high culture presentation and interpretation. This makes them both interesting on many levels and dependent on blockbuster value as tourist destinations. This museum is a digital museum as an arena open for debate on media culture.
SUGGEST A NEW FACE
The selection of faces will change non-stop. The Heroes Museum welcomes suggestions for new faces and appreciates debate on what makes a face valuable in our media age. Please send your suggestions to newface@heroesmuseum.online with a clear motivation of your choice of famous face.
CATEGORIES
Face value of our heroes in the Heroes Museum is determined by careful selection looking into many of the contemporary media arena spectrums of visibility and prestige. Heroes Museum sorts face value of its heroes by category. Categories overlap as no individual, media mogul, historic figure, of any importance is redeemable by categorization of background, class, genre. This is the age of fusion and the interflow momentum and a face value determination of the moment is the media melting pot of renewed ideas of personality and scope of individual power.
Heroes Museum has as yet determined the following categories to value face value:
THINKERS, intellectual powerhouses that defined the 20th century and will define the 21st. Iconic by following, overall esteem of free thinking advocacy and introspective value to society at large and global appeal. These thinkers are some of the greatest minds of our time whose ideas and intellectual ideals will predominate modern intellectual ambition for ages.
POLITICIANS, as formal power structures spawn icons nevertheless. Political heroes come in many forms, many some of the most iconic faces of recent history. Politics is becoming less and less popular and the outcome of recent elections mirrors that very dominant distrust with atrocious results. Safe to say political face value is in dire need of unfounded optimism and new iconic flair.
INNOVATORS, the entrepreneurs shaping futures by changing financial systems, the digital age, science as a business plan and recreational space travel, for instance. Innovation is both a business and a cause. These innovators are part fortune-teller, part mogul.
HYPES, our temporary talks of the town, social media darlings and subjects of short attention span affections. Our hypes are the short lived media obsessions signifying our media age, quality and necessity very optional.
IDEALISTS, they seem to be fighting a lost cause. But amidst this media age of opportunism and spectacle they are rare gems of value by virtue, perhaps fighting a long lost battle of integrity outdated. But the media machinations do deliver new means for idealism. The game has changed, yes, but the audience is permanent, hopefully.
ARTISTS, free thinkers as creators, exploring the new critical contraptions of and responses to visual culture and the arts that have shaped our ideas of reactionary culture and artistic activism. The adoption of art in mainstream media makes artists more than ever relevant in the media arena for their significant visual ideals.
ENTERTAINERS, those who rule the escapism machines of Hollywood, HBO and the iTunes charts. The entertainers of our time are far more likely to be part of our media intake than the intellectual elite. They are corporate, bionic brands of the media age ruling by visibility and face value. And they may be far more interesting than that may imply.
ARCHETYPES, the faces of our time that signify our society’s stereotypes as role models or clichés. Our contemporary archetypes mirror many of societies misconceptions of individualism and yet can sometimes be hope filled new icons for new generations.
FICTIONAL FIGURES, the characters of our entertainment universe that entertain the masses as literary personages as demi-gods, cartoonish symbols and stereotypical metaphors of our everyday life. Fiction mirrors reality in many ways in our fictional face value line up of characters. If they serve as introspective sounding boards is yet to be witnessed.
THE NOTORIOUS, from demagogues and dictators to criminals and cultural hypes. The notoriously bad, or awful even, have victimized many or taken a black plunge in society’s standards of iconic greatness, publicly shamed by the masses. Some of the notorious, however, are feared as much as they are revered by many.
ACTIVISTS, using political flair, diplomacy, the entertainers’ suave and overall grit. Using media savviness or downright chaotic disorder tactics, todays activists can be idealist pop stars or political misfits, whistleblowers, outcasts. Activism, now more than ever, is about numbers in views, and reach by new media channels for viral support.
LIST OF PORTRAITS
Abraham Lincoln
Adele
Adolf Hitler
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud
Albert Einstein
Anders Breivik
Andy Warhol
Angela Merkel
Angelina Jolie
Anna Wintour
Anne Frank
Anonymous
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Assad, Bashar al-
Ban Ki-Moon
Barack Obama
Barbie
Beethoven
Bernie Sanders
Beyonce Knowles
Bill Gates
Boston Bomber Tsrenayev
Brad Pitt
Britney Spears
Buster Keaton
Charlie Chaplin
Chelsea Manning
Christine Lagarde
Dalai Lama
Darth Vader
David – Michelangelo
David Beckham
David Bowie
Desmond Tutu
Donald Trump
Edvard Munch – De Schreeuw
Edward Snowden
Ellen Degeneres
Elon Musk
Elvis Presley
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip
Fidel Castro
Frida Kahlo
Gaddafi
Geert Wilders
Hillary Clinton
Homer Simpson
Iron Man
Jennifer Lawrence – Katniss Everdeen
Joker, The – Heath Ledger
Julian Assange
Justin Bieber
Kanye West
Karl Lagerfeld
Kate Moss
Kim Jong Un
Kim Kardashian
Lady Di
Lady Gaga
Lady Liberty
Larry King
Lenin, Vladimir Iljitsj
Leonardo DiCaprio
Madeleine McCann
Madonna
Mao Tse Tung
Margaret Thatcher
Marilyn Monroe
Marina Abramovic
Mark Zuckerberg
Martin Luther King
Maxima
Meisje met de parel, Johannes Vermeer
Meryl Streep
Michael Jackson
Mickey Mouse
Miley Cyrus
Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci
Moslima
Mozart
Naomi Campbell
National Geographic – Steve McCurry
Nelson Mandela
Nicholas Sarkozy
Nicolae Caucescu
OJ Simpson
Oprah Winfrey
Pablo Picasso
Paris Hilton
Pepe the Frog
Pope Francis
Prince
Pussy Riot
Queen Elizabeth
Rembrandt
Robert DeNiro
Sadam Hussein
Sarah Palin
Serena Williams
Silvio Berlusconi
Steve Jobs
Tom Cruise
Tom Hanks
Twiggy
Vincent Van Gogh
Vivienne Westwood
Vladimir Putin
Winston Churchill
Yasar Arafat