East Hampton sues The Ranch, and a judge bars any work on its 60-foot sculpture
The town wants the shipping-container work demolished at the gallery's expense,
Law and Crime
East Hampton sued the owners of The Ranch over the 60-foot sculpture of stacked shipping containers on the Montauk gallery's grounds. A state judge has temporarily barred them from working on the piece without the town's approval while the case proceeds.
The sculpture, Los Angeles artist Matt Johnson's Meditating Figure, is a 2026 work assembled from a dozen decommissioned shipping containers into a cross-legged figure.
The Ranch announced it on Instagram as "a deity built by capital and consumption; a reality of the daily contemporary experience," and said its "head towers 60 ft into the Montauk sky," Urgent Matter previously reported.
The Town of East Hampton filed a complaint on July 28 in State Supreme Court in Suffolk County against The Ranch and its principal, art dealer Max Levai, court documents obtained by Urgent Matter show.
This lawsuit is separate from four code-enforcement charges related to the sculpture's missing building permit, architectural review, certificate of occupancy, and conservation easement, as the East Hamptons Press first reported.
The town is asking the court to allow it to tear down the sculpture at The Ranch's expense, clear all waste and scrap material from the property, and return the land to agricultural use. It wants the court to declare the sculpture illegal and order its removal.
Three days after the lawsuit was filed, Justice Carl J. Copertino signed a temporary restraining order preventing The Ranch from any construction, repair, renovation, removal, or modification of the sculpture without prior approval from the town’s building department. The judge also said such approval is “not to be unreasonably withheld.”
Paid subscribers can read the full court documents.
Documents: East Hampton sues to tear down The Ranch sculpture
The full file in Town of East Hampton v. The Ranch, as of August 2, 2026.
Adam Schrader
The judge set a September 9 hearing, when he will weigh whether to keep the limits in place for the rest of the case.
The property at 8 Old Montauk Highway is bound by a 1983 agreement that sold its development rights to the town and set the land aside "exclusively for agricultural production," the town alleged in the complaint. The town recorded that agreement with the Suffolk County Clerk on September 1, 1983.
The sculpture sits on part of the parcel restricted to farming, the town said, and was built without a building permit.
An East Hampton ordinance enforcement inspector, Cristhian Sanchez, reported seeing about nine shipping containers "being used to create an art structure" at the property on June 18 and swore in a citation that the town's Building Department had issued no permit for it.
The town first named Johnson as a defendant alongside Levai and the company. It dropped him two days later, in an amended complaint filed July 30 that leaves only The Ranch and Levai.
Justice George Nolan, who initially had the case, stepped aside on July 29 and sent it back to the clerk to be reassigned to another judge at random. A form filed with his order indicated he wanted to avoid any appearance that his impartiality might be questioned.
In court papers, Assistant Town Attorney Dennis M. Brown argued the town is likely to win because the violations are "open and obvious." He wrote that under state law the town "is not required to show irreparable harm, special injury, or the lack of an adequate remedy at law" to get the order.
The town sued under state law and its own building code, which allow it to go to court to stop and undo zoning and building violations.
The suit follows a July 7 vote by the East Hampton Town Board, which authorized the lawsuit 4-1 through Resolution 2026-1119. Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez moved it, and Councilwoman Cate Rogers seconded. Councilman Tom Flight cast the lone no vote, as Urgent Matter previously reported.
East Hampton moves to sue The Ranch over giant sculpture
The Montauk gallery faces four charges over Matt Johnson’s “Meditating Figure.”
Adam Schrader
Town Attorney Jake Turner told the board at that meeting the sculpture is subject to code regardless of its status as art.
"By definition, this is a structure. They're welding large pieces of metal together. It needs to go through the Building Department for applicable safety standard checks," he said. "If we don't take action, then we are compromising the safety of the residents."
But Flight objected to the town regulating art on private land.
"This is a public work of art. We don't have a lot of guidance as to, like, when are we restricting art being displayed," he said, adding that "to deny people the ability to exhibit art is not something I personally support."
Levai, an art dealer, bought the Montauk property in 2020 and converted one of its two horse barns into an exhibition space. The town moved against the gallery once before, in 2023, over what officials described as a commercial gallery operating on agricultural land.
Follow along with other art world litigation at Urgent Matter’s lawsuit tracker.
Members Discussion