Shut Down LD50 to ‘keep fighting’ after Dalston gallery reopens

Protesters outside LD50 in February. Photograph: Andrew Barnes

Campaigners calling for LD50 art gallery to be shuttered for “supporting racist causes” have pledged to continue their fight.

Shut Down LD50 organised a mass protest outside the Tottenham Road venue in February after news emerged that it hosted a “Neoreaction conference” last year 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”.

The furore led to the gallery being temporarily closed, but it has now reopened with a new exhibition called ‘Corporeality’.

Reacting to the news, Shut Down LD50 said: “Whether they intend to stay for a few more days or for good isn’t clear; but, then, neither is it important. Shut Down LD50 is perfectly happy to keep up its campaign to inform the community about the activities of the LD50 directors and will do so until either they recognise the brutality of the politics that they promote or leave the borough for good.”

LD50 bosses declined to comment on concerns its reopening will lead to more protests but did provide some information about the new show, which ends on 20 May.

The gallery said: “The exhibition, suspended in an algorithmic cloud, unveils an emergent ‘intelligent’ pattern that not only mimics structures embedded in nature but subjugates it to its own realities and narratives.

“As a result, banned twitter timelines and sensitive academic papers that are implicitly feared by public opinion are displayed alongside a new kind of imagery created using dcgan (Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks) showcasing artificial consciousness and its potential role in the future.”

One of the artworks includes broken glass which the gallery says is a result of protestors throwing a brick through its window.

But Shut Down LD50 campaigners added: “If the gallery senses a marketing opportunity and chooses to dig its heels in, so be it. But for so long as they continue to support racist causes while disclaiming responsibility for their outcomes, we need to show them that they aren’t welcome here.”