In a field in Montauk sits a figure in the lotus position, nearly eighteen metres tall, constructed from twelve shipping containers that traversed the seas for years before their retirement. It is titled Meditating Figure, created by Matt Johnson, and has formed part of an open-air exhibition since late June. To the art world, it is a monumental sculpture. To the East Hampton Town Council, it is an unlicensed structure. Both assertions are true simultaneously, and that overlap constitutes the matter at hand.

The municipality has not stated that the piece is poor, offensive, or unworthy of exhibition. It has not sought to judge the work as a work of art. It has performed something distinct and more compelling: it has reclassified it. The town attorney articulated this with a clarity worth citing: “By definition, this is a structure: large pieces of metal are being welded. It must undergo review by the building department for the applicable safety checks.” The charges are standard urban planning procedure: lack of a building permit, lack of a certificate of occupancy, lack of approval from the architectural review board, and impact on land with agricultural protection.

Viewed through the building code, the argument is impeccable. A structure of eighteen metres of welded steel, through which the public will walk, is precisely the type of object that inspection exists to review. Its status as a sculpture does not render it more stable. Furthermore, New York law, according to the council itself, makes no distinction: if an object qualifies as a structure, it requires a permit, and the municipal code contains no exception for art.

Viewed through the art world, the argument is equally robust and posits the contrary. It is a work of art, it is signed, it is exhibited, and it is recognised by the field that identifies works of art. The sole council member who voted against taking action stated it plainly: “It is a public work of art. We do not possess many guidelines regarding when we are restricting the exhibition of art. Denying people the opportunity to exhibit art is not something I support.”

What is striking is not that one of the two parties is mistaken. It is that neither is mistaken. The attorney perceives welding; the council member perceives art. They observe the same object and both are correct, because they are observing from distinct regimes, and each regime brings its own category, its own rules, and its own criteria for what counts. It is not a clash between those who are right and those who are not. It is a clash between two systems that recognise different things in the same piece of the world.

This connects to a premise I maintain in the research on recognition that I am developing with Adolfo Cortés García: that the status of a work is not a property that the object carries, switched on or off, but something that depends upon the system evaluating it. A single object may carry a surplus that one regime recognises and another does not register at all. This is not because one is correct and the other is mistaken, but because each system is calibrated to perceive its own domain. The building code lacks a sensor for art, just as the art world lacks one for wind load on a steel piece. Each is blind precisely to what the other perceives.

Therefore, this case is not a narrative of bureaucracy versus creativity, although it may be recounted as such and indeed is. A sculpture does not cease to be art simply because the local council designates it a structure. It remains art to all those who recognise it as such, and they are many. What occurs is that it has also entered a second regime for which its status as a work of art is simply irrelevant: it does not deny it, it does not dispute it, it does not perceive it. Under the building code, whether it is an eighteen-metre meditation or a water tank is immaterial; what matters is whether it is structurally sound and possesses the requisite documentation.

And here lies the aspect that an artist perceives before a jurist. An object does not possess a single status. It possesses as many as there are regimes that interact with it. The same seated figure is a work of art in the gallery, a structure in the building department, an asset on a balance sheet, merchandise at a fair, and perhaps a nuisance to a neighbour. None of these statuses is the true one with the others serving as mere ornamentation. They coexist, and for the most part, they do not interfere because they operate on planes that do not intersect. They interfere when, as in this instance, two of them lay claim to the same object simultaneously with incompatible consequences: one desires its retention, the other that it undergo the formal procedure or be removed.

What the Montauk conflict reveals—and why it appears to me as more than a mere summer anecdote from the Hamptons—is that there exists no neutral vantage point from which to declare what that sculpture “truly” is. The perspective of art is no more truthful than that of the building code, nor vice versa. They are two methods of apprehending the object, each complete within its own regulations and blind outside of them. To inquire which is correct is akin to asking whether a chord is “truly” a vibration of air or an emotion: it is both, depending upon who is listening.

The judge presiding over the case in September will not resolve that question, as it lies beyond their purview. They will decide upon something more modest and concrete: whether, for the purposes of the New York building code, this sculpture requires a permit. They will determine the status of the documentation. What the work itself is will continue to depend, as it always has, upon who is viewing it and through which regime.

On open conversation

This text applies to a recent case an idea I am developing in my research on recognition, which I share with Adolfo Cortés García: that the status of a work is not an inherent property of the object, but rather something relative to the system evaluating it, such that distinct regimes may recognise different things in the same object without either being mistaken. The Montauk case demonstrates this with rare clarity, as two regimes lay claim to the same sculpture simultaneously. Should anyone wish to intervene from the fields of urban planning law, cultural management, museology, or art theory, this notebook remains open.

Sources

The Art Newspaper, 13 August 2026 (statements by Patrick Derenze and Jake Turner; description of the work and the site).

The East Hampton Star, 6 August 2026 (citations from the complaint; location and description).

Urgent Matter, 3 and 13 July and August 2026 (procedural chronology: complaint of 28 July, TRO of 31 July, hearing of 9 September; distinction between lawsuit and administrative charges).

The Ranch, official page of LA Monumental (exhibition framework and dates).

East Hampton Town Code, §102-7 (building permit) and §102-14 (certificate of occupancy).

Cortés García, Adolfo, and Juan A. Esteban Ruiz. Recognition and Surplus. Zenodo, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21630455