Max Levai’s Secluded Montauk Ranch Offers Sanctuary for Artists
Max Levai was born into the art world. The son of former Marlborough Gallery director Pierre Levai, he came of age in the 2000s in New York. Soaking up the city's flourishing creative energy, he was exposed to the throngs of successful dealers and artists—including the likes of Matthew Marks, Gavin Brown, and Paula Cooper—who were taking over the cultural capital.
Today, Levai is cultivating an alternative platform in the contemporary art landscape with an innovative venture in Montauk, New York. The Ranch is a 26-acre horse farm surrounded by an area rich in history, culture and creative inspiration. Undergirded by an unparalleled exhibition programme, Levai's secluded rural pasture offers an idyllic sanctuary for artists seeking an alternative to city-based exhibition spaces.
Levai sits down with Ocula Advisor Rory Mitchell to discuss the horse farm-turned gallery, growing up in the New York art scene, and his ambitions for future projects.
Tell me about The Ranch—how did the idea come about?
The idea for The Ranch occurred in the midst of Covid-19. In June 2020, during peak Covid lockdown, I was living in Montauk and found myself suddenly without a job or venue to organise exhibitions.
I came across the farm while walking my dog on nearby nature trails and became obsessed with the property and figuring out how to make it work. I came up with the idea on those walks.
The Ranch is a rare piece of pasture in a landscape that you wouldn't usually associate with somewhere like the Hamptons.
It's been a meeting point for most of its history—Theodore Roosevelt trained the famous Rough Riders army there, and Carl Fischer built the barns and operated a polo field on the property in the late 1920s as a central part of his failed Montauk project. It was the stomping ground for Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey and friends in the 1970s.
In the 1990s, it was the venue for the 'Back at the Ranch' concert series which brought legendary artists like Billy Joel, Paul Simon, and James Brown to perform in the pasture for thousands of fans. Physically, the property hasn't changed much over time and the idea is to keep it that way.
My vision was to preserve and reactivate the farm which had been dormant for the last few decades.
The East Barn is an original Carl Fischer-era structure that has been preserved and is used as an active stable and home for horses who compete around the country in cutting—a kind of western-style horse competition.
The West Barn was renovated to create an exhibition space within the existing barn structure. I set myself some rules that included not altering the outside of the structure and only using natural materials that were already present on the property.
By June 2021, the renovation was more or less complete and we prepared for our first season. The inaugural exhibition, Peter Halley: Blocks (17 June–17 July 2021), featured a display of new paintings by a courageous Peter Halley, who was forced to install his paintings during the opening as we completed the final touches to the space.
A lot of time was also spent rehab-ing the grounds, specifically a four-acre piece of pasture between the barns which we have re-envisioned as an outdoor gallery space where we make our outdoor sculpture exhibitions.
Will the programme focus more on historical artists, or contemporary artists working today?
The vision behind the programming is to move seamlessly between contemporary and more historic material. Everything that is considered for The Ranch is in some way connected or enhanced by the unique setting of the horse farm, the realities of the gallery space, and the context of Montauk.
We have presented solo exhibitions of new work made for the space by a younger generation of contemporary artists like Jo Messer and Jamian Juliano-Villani. Juliano-Villani used her exhibition, Jamian Juliano-Villani: Mike Kelley (10 September–5 October 2022), to integrate works by Mike Kelley into her show. We worked closely with Kelley's dealer Patrick Painter, and staged an easter egg hunt in September where Juliano-Villani gave a painting away to the winner.
The programme has also focused on an older generation of artists like Daniel Lind-Ramos, who was recently named a MacArthur Fellow and will open his next solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, New York, at the end of April 2023. We worked very closely with American artist Frank Stella on a survey of his work from the early 1990s to the present. That took place both inside and outside of the gallery.
We have presented historical initiatives, like the first exhibition in 50 years of Surrealist cult hero Renate Druks, an exhibition of early drawings made in the 1960s by New Zealand-based artist Susan Te Kahurangi King, and an exhibition of 14 never-before-seen paintings by Forrest Bess.
Each season or year will have its own identity and is designed to bring together an eclectic mix of ideas that do or don't make sense as a whole. Each year will be new and different.
Tell me about Forrest Bess and his show I Can Close My Eyes in a Dark Room (12 November 2021–15 January 2022). He is such a fascinating figure—how did that come about?
It was a huge honour to work with the Forrest Bess material and we were so fortunate to get that opportunity. A friend in Texas is a real connoisseur of his work, and is extremely knowledgeable of the different places that Bess lived in the southern central state. The discovery of the works was by Bess' primary patron, Harry Burkhardt's ranch hand, who was given orders to clean out Burkhardt's nearby lake house and to keep anything that was left for himself. The works were found in a box in the attic. Burkhardt died, and the house was sold.
After we committed to exhibiting the works, we began conducting research on them and were slowly able to find out more about each of the works as we started to decode their specific histories. A great moment was when we found one of our paintings hung on the wall in a photograph of Bess holding court in Burkhardt's rocking chair, in the living room of the very house the paintings were found in.
Forrest Bess is now more internationally known than ever, but in America there are Bess fanatics. We had visitors who requested to spend full days with the exhibition and had people show up to Montauk in the fall from as far from Europe and California, just to see the paintings in person.
The fall is my favourite season at The Ranch—it's a little calmer than summer and those who make it out enjoy the gallery and property to themselves. This season was a particularly special way to get to look at Bess' paintings.
Since opening, which other exhibitions have been highlights for you?
We worked with some incredible Peter Saul material for the Forbidden Fruit exhibition (4 September–10 October 2021) during our first season. This included a painting made in the early 1960s in Rome, and was documented to have been seen by Willem de Kooning who was impressed and wrote about it in a letter to his dealer at the time. The exhibition focused on Saul and some of his cohorts in San Francisco during the 1960s and early 1970s, and included incredible paintings by Robert Williams which was another amazing moment for me.
Working with Virginia Overton on various outdoor projects on the property has also been a highlight. Watching her make Untitled (chime) (2021) on site and having her at the house working on the property felt so rewarding. It was amazing to see her finished sculpture so well integrated into the property at The Ranch.
Do those outdoor sculptures change seasonally, exhibition to exhibition, or are they permanent?
Each season, we've had different outdoor sculpture initiatives that stand alone as exhibitions. In our inaugural year, we presented a group show called Camp Hero (17 June–3 October 2021), which took its title from the state park nearby. The display included artists like Virgina Overton, Frank Benson, Aaron Curry, and Marianne Vitale.
In our second season, we focused on a solo exhibition of Frank Stella's outdoor sculpture, which spanned a 19-feet-tall steel sculpture from the 'Moby Dick' series (1986–97) to his most recently completed large-scale fibreglass and steel outdoor sculpture called The Grand Cascapedia (2021).
The exhibition also took place inside the gallery and focused on Stella post-1990—a period when he produced work generated through 3D modelling systems and, for the most part, made off the wall, sculptural work.
Tell me about your background—what was it like growing up with parents involved in the art world?
I was born in 1987 and grew up in New York where I came of age in the 2000s. I had a sense I was watching the art world grow. I witnessed neighbourhoods like Chelsea arise and got glimpses of special energy in downtown New York that had a profound impact on me. I was privileged enough to see many exhibitions, galleries, and museums before I even began to consider getting into the business.
By the time I was 17 or 18, it felt natural to participate in bringing art into the lives of certain people through art dealing. After university, I began working with Marlborough Gallery where my job became about meeting and working with artists and making exhibitions.
Do you have ambitions to open a space in New York?
I definitely have ambitions to open other spaces in the future. There's a particular energy in New York right now, where the gallery scene and the emergence of creative neighbourhoods like Tribeca are flourishing. The idea of being part of something like that is certainly appealing.
As for today, my focus is on my artists, my clients, and continuing to ensure that The Ranch fulfils its potential and remains consistent with what makes it special and appealing for me and the artists that participate.
Do you think there's an advantage to having a point of difference, like The Ranch, to regular galleries in New York, Los Angeles, or London nowadays?
For me, it's really about what I can provide to my clients and artists. The advantages of staying small are talked about a lot less than the advantages of expanding. Obviously expanding has its benefits, but it also creates less time for other things. Currently, I'm in an unusual position where I'm able to give my clients and artists unique amounts of attention.
At The Ranch, we're able to do what a gallery does in a major city just as effectively here in the summer, where there's a great audience looking to come and see art and engage with it. Rather than doing it from a city street, you're doing it outside from a horse farm that focuses on non-traditional initiatives and is really connected with the local community.
The Ranch has enriched my decision to continue doing what I do, but on a smaller and more personal scale. I've found a place that inspires me and gives me peace and hope. I've been fortunate enough to find that space and create a sort of ecosystem that functions well and is exciting for the artists. —[O]
Main image: Max Levai. Courtesy Max Levai and The Ranch, Montauk.
