Horizon Ablaze at Taichung Art Museum: 50 Works Explore Heat, Colonialism and Disease
Horizon Ablaze, taking place at the Taichung Art Museum from 15 May to 30 August, showcases 50 pieces by 33 artists mainly hailing from tropical areas. This exhibition delves into the concepts of heat as a sensory experience, a memory, and a form of language; however, the review points out its lack of unity. Among the highlighted pieces are Chihhung Liu’s Drawing by Folk remedies_Island (2024), Wang Shou-Ying’s Summertime (1972), and Tropical Zincphony (2013) by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker. Colonial motifs appear in Zih-Yan Ciou’s Takasago stag beetle (2026) and Ana Elena Tejera’s 1,432 km of Humiliation (2025). Disease is addressed in works like Klotos Mangohain (2026) by Musquiqui Chihying and Gregor Kasper and Chang Chien-Chi’s Bongo Fever (2011). The review indicates that the relationships among the artworks often seem tenuous.
Key facts
- Horizon Ablaze runs 15 May – 30 August at Taichung Art Museum.
- The exhibition features 50 works by 33 artists and collectives, mainly from tropical or subtropical regions including Central America, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
- It explores heat as bodily sensation, historical memory and cultural language.
- Chihhung Liu’s Drawing by Folk remedies_Island (2024) uses herbal pigments to depict a desert scene linked to childhood heatstroke.
- Zih-Yan Ciou’s Takasago stag beetle (2026) addresses Japanese colonial influence on insect studies in Taiwan.
- Musquiqui Chihying and Gregor Kasper’s Klotos Mangohain (2026) investigates German colonial drug testing in Togoland, now Togo.
- Chang Chien-Chi’s Bongo Fever (2011) documents the HIV epidemic in Tanzania, where over 6 percent of the population was affected.
- The review criticizes the show for treating colonial legacies without urgency and for risking a narrative of Africa as a victim of disease and poverty.
Entities
Artists
- Chihhung Liu
- Wang Shou-Ying
- Donna Conlon
- Jonathan Harker
- Zih-Yan Ciou
- Ana Elena Tejera
- Musquiqui Chihying
- Gregor Kasper
- Chang Chien-Chi
- Verónica Navas
- Elyla
- Ampannee Satoh
- Jaekyung Jung
- Posak Jodian
- Hao Hao
- Adeline Chia
Institutions
- Taichung Art Museum
- ArtReview Asia
- ArtReview
Locations
- Taichung
- Taiwan
- Panama
- Panama Canal Zone
- Togoland
- Togo
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Pattani
- Yogyakarta
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Nicaragua
- Central America
- Southeast Asia
- East Asia
- West Africa
- Africa