Controversial LD50 gallery in Dalston launches new exhibition

Veiled response: visitors are able to destroy content as part of the new exhibit. Images: via Twitter

A contentious gallery that appeared to have shut up shop following heated protests earlier this year is hosting a new exhibition.

LD50 on Tottenham Road was targeted by anti-fascists in February after news emerged that it hosted a “Neoreaction conference” in 2016 featuring leading proponents of the so-called “alt right” movement.

Speakers at the event included Brett Stevens, who has previously praised Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, saying “he chose to act where many of us write, think and dream”.

After organising a mass protest outside the venue in February, Shutdown LD50! campaigners declared victory in a blog post a month later which claimed gallery owner Lucia Diego had been forced out by the landlord.

But last week, an article about LD50’s new ‘Corporeality’ exhibition appeared on Stevens’ website Amerika.org, which has been criticised in the past for posting fascist content.

The unnamed author writes: “Although it has attracted the most attention for its Neoreaction and Alt Right exhibits, LD50 represents a new brand of artist that combines trolling, provocation, surrealism and critical theory into ensconcing art experiences that raise more questions than offer answers.”

In what appears to be a veiled response to protests calling for the gallery’s closure, one of the artworks for the new show includes “six computer workstations where participants are encouraged to sit and work through the paper content and destroy it if they find it inappropriate, uninteresting or offensive”.

LD50’s website contains no information about the show, other than a graphic of its title, but says the gallery is open daily from 12pm until 6pm.

One of the artists involved in the exhibition, known only as Kantbot, is quoted by Amerika.org as saying: “This show explores moral entrepreneurship and what it means to deconstruct and control thought in an age when ideas are completely divorced as digital entities, from any tangible reality as objects.”

In related news, the artist behind Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character adopted by the alt right movement in the build-up to last year’s US presidential election, appears to have killed off his creation.

Matt Furie, who launched a campaign to “Save Pepe” after his character was included in the Anti-Defamation League’s list of hate symbols last year, today published a comic strip which showed the frog in an open casket.

LD50 owner Lucia Diego has been approached for comment.