NEW YORK, NY.- On October 28th, the National Arts Club and its Fine Arts Committee, as directed by Dianne B. Bernhard, celebrated the opening of 186,282 from Bentley Meeker. The exhibition showcases 24 sculptures that juxtapose halogen and LED lights, plus a chandelier made out hand-blown glass marijuana pipes entitled the "Bongolier." The sculptures are meant to heighten the viewer’s awareness about how little of the full light spectrum is contained in LED lights compared to halogen, particularly since LEDs have increasingly come to dominate our daily lives. The show will remain on display until November 7th.

Between 6pm and 8pm, guests including Whitney Musuem curators Jay Sanders and Greta Hartenstein, and the Gagosian Gallery’s Lidia Andich arrived at the historic location to view the collection. Miami-based electronic music duo, Treasure Teeth, provided a fitting background accompaniment to the modern glow of Meeker’s artworks.

Bentley commented, “Light has been a lifelong passion of mine and I am so pleased with the work on display tonight. Whether people enjoy the works for their surface appeal or if they’re feeling the juxtaposition of halogen and LED light that I put out there doesn’t matter so much to me as long as they’re getting something out of the art. The National Arts Club is an incredible Gramercy Park institution and I’m proud to have my frames up on the walls here.”

The exhibition marks the third installment of the Fine Arts 2015 program under the direction of Dianne B. Bernhard. It provides a complement to prior record-breaking exhibitions, including Robert Wilson's Black & White, Michael Halsband’s Portraits, Charles James: Beneath the Dress, Dali: The Golden Years and Goya: Los Caprichos.

Additional guests included actress Amy Hargreaves from Showtime’s Homeland, filmmaker Angela Bernhard Thomas, Muffie Potter Aston, Alexa Potter Adler, Billy Reilly photographer and filmmaker DJ Pierce, and the National Arts Club’s President, Chris Poe.

Throughout Meeker's long and distinguished career of creating spectacular light installations and environments for his commercial enterprise, his work, both commercial and artistic, has inspired a heightened awareness of the viewer's relationship with light, and by extension the necessary properties of said light for our daily existence. Bentley has shown at The Whitney, has created large-scale public works (most notably the "H" in Harlem) and created the lighting for three Temples at Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada. He is consistently commissioned by The White House to design private and state events. Most recently, he returned to Burning Man this summer to create the lighting at the Temple of Promise.