No one should demand the closure of galleries – even for far-right artworks

The campaign to shut down London’s LD50 for giving a platform to extremist speakers is pathetic. Art galleries must be allowed to anger and disgust us

Shutting art galleries down is never a good idea. I don’t care how offensive you or I may find the art they show or the events they organise. Haven’t we learned by now that art has the right to offend, and that art galleries are spaces in which to be shocked, provoked, even disgusted?

Only yesterday it was conservative taste that found the contemporary art world offensive. Now it is the liberal left that wants to literally “shut down” an east London art space that has shown, among other things, the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Related: Art gallery criticised over neo-Nazi artwork and hosting racist speakers

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