The collection began with a powdered wig, a borrowed model ship, and the desire to invent a constellation.

In the late 1990s, Hochbaum was living in a basement apartment on East Ninth Street between Avenues B and C in New York’s Alphabet City, where he also photographed models. A longtime admirer of Terry Gilliam’s collage animations, he was particularly drawn to the fantastical imagery of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits. The creature carrying a ship on its head and the elaborate ship-bearing coiffures associated with the era of Marie Antoinette appealed to a sensibility already shaped by ancient mythology, a source of inspiration since his early days in art school. His longstanding fascination with old maps and the constellations of the zodiac gave this emerging figure a world to inhabit. A siren crowned with a sailing vessel could belong as much to the sky as to the sea.

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At the time, Hochbaum worked as an assistant to a window dresser’s assistant on projects for Simon Doonan at Barneys New York. A warehouse filled with years of display props yielded a powdered wig, which he “borrowed indefinitely.” Finding the right ship proved more difficult. In the late 1990s, online shopping offered only a fraction of the selection available today. Hochbaum searched both eBay and local shops in New York City, but finding an affordable model with the right shape, size, and proportions took time and persistence.

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The answer appeared in a small seafood shop on First Avenue between St. Marks Place and Ninth Street, where he regularly bought fresh fish, fried clams, and sushi rolls. Behind the counter, on a shelf, stood a dusty, somewhat shabby model galleon. An ordinary decorative object, it nevertheless had exactly the silhouette he needed. After gathering the courage, he returned and asked to borrow it for a photo shoot. The man behind the counter trusted him with the boat.

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Back in the apartment, Hochbaum used fishing line to sew the ship to the powdered wig. This became the first crown for what would eventually be a long succession of wigged sirens. For the photograph, he approached a woman he had seen on a street in the Village and asked her to portray Leucothea, an ancient Greek sea goddess who acts as a protectress of sailors and travelers in distress. His intention was to give her a constellation of his own design, placing a protective sea figure among the stars.

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The photograph was made around 1998–1999, and Leucothea was completed around 2002. At the time, it was conceived as an individual work. There was no plan to populate an entire sky.

That possibility emerged in 2005, when an invitation to present a solo exhibition in Berlin prompted Hochbaum to expand the idea into a body of invented siren star charts. Held in 2006 in Berlin’s Friedrichshain neighborhood, the exhibition was titled Himmelsboten, giving this gathering of figures a shared banner. The exhibition brought a developing mythology into focus, with further incarnations of these sea dwellers appearing in the years that followed.

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The ship crown, the musical siren, and the creature suspended between sea and sky became recurring elements in Hochbaum’s work, open to new forms and associations each time he returns to them. Their origins also reflect something that has long sustained his practice: the unexpected convergence of finding what he needs and meeting people willing to help bring an idea to life. Such moments of providence, generosity, and collaboration have made many of his artworks possible and continue to inspire him to pursue the next idea.