Standing 60 feet tall in a former horse pasture at Max Levai’s Montauk exhibition space, The Ranch, Matt Johnson’s Meditating Figure is impossible to ignore. Built from 12 retired shipping containers that collectively traveled more than 12 million miles before being stacked into the outline of a cross-legged figure, the sculpture turns one of globalization’s least glamorous inventions into something approaching a contemporary colossus. Now, it has become the center of an increasingly public fight that may end up in the court room. Related Articles Last week, the East Hampton Town Board, which oversees the Hampton’s easternmost hamlet, voted 4-1 to authorize legal action against The Ranch, arguing that the installation should be treated not simply as a work of art but as an un-permitted steel structure subject to local building regulations. The dispute has produced an unexpectedly philosophical question for a zoning board: At what point does a sculpture become architecture?  The timing is difficult to ignore. Shipping containers have quietly become some of the most politically charged objects in the world. Whether the conversation …