David Hockney to attend Frankfurt Book Fair on 18 Oct

As part of THE ARTS+ programme, Hockney, known for his 1963 large pop art painting A Bigger Splash, among others, will present A Bigger Book, the new 500-page, large-format Sumo book, published by Taschen. THE ARTS+ is a new trade fair for content and digital business models in the cultural and creative sector. Taschen is one of the founding partners of THE ARTS+.

Born in Yorkshire in 1937, David Hockney is considered one of the most important artists of our age. He has enjoyed a career of artistic creation lasting more than 60 years. Even today, the 79-year-old still shows a great desire to experiment and a willingness to include technical innovation in his work in unexpected ways.

In his search for new forms to represent the world around us, he has used photocopiers and fax machines, and has integrated polaroids and photo collages into his painting. His inventive zeal remains undiminished. For his exhibition A Bigger Picture (2012) the artist produced a cycle of large-format images, with the help of an iPad. He has also produced unique landscapes projected onto video walls, filming with nine cameras mounted on a four-wheel-drive truck, each scene shot on-the-move from subtly different angles.

“David Hockney is one of the most multifaceted artists of the present day,” says Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. “His openness to new media and his application of digital techniques, which is frankly genius, have made him into one of the pioneers of contemporary art. It also means he’s an ideal representative of what we want to showcase at THE ARTS+: the synthesis of the digital and the aesthetic in art.”

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the international publishing industry’s biggest trade fair – with 7,100 exhibitors from more than 100 countries, around 2,75,000 visitors, over 4,000 events and approximately 10,000 accredited journalists – including 2,000 bloggers - in attendance. It also gathers key players from other media, including the film and games industries. Since 1976, the Fair has featured an annual Guest of Honour country, which showcases its book market, literature and culture to attendees in a variety of ways.