Biography :
Art Bears were formed during the recording of Henry Cow's last album after disagreements arose over the album's content. Frith and Cutler favoured song-oriented material, while others in the band wanted instrumental compositions. As a compromise, Frith, Cutler and Krause agreed, early in 1978, to release the songs already created on their own album, Hopes and Fears under the name Art Bears, with the rest of Henry Cow credited as guests. The instrumental material appeared later on the final Henry Cow album, Western Culture(1979).
Hopes and Fears (1978) thus consisted of Henry Cow songs plus new Art Bears material recorded later by Frith, Cutler and Krause to complete the album. Towards the end of 1978, Art Bears returned to the studio to record their first "true" album, Winter Songs (1979). It comprised fourteen short songs composed by Frith around texts by Cutler that were based on carvings on the stylobate of the Amiens Cathedral in France.
In December 1978, Art Bears joined Rock in Opposition (RIO), and toured Europe in April and May 1979. For the tour, they added Peter Blegvad (ex-Slapp Happy, guitar, bass guitar, voice) and Marc Hollander (Aksak Maboul , keyboards, clarinet) to their line-up, and rehearsed at the Cold Storage Recording Studios in Brixton , London before leaving for Italy in late April. They performed in Italy, France, Belgium and Czechoslovakia , including a RIO festival on the 1st of May in Milan. Some of the songs recorded during the tour were later added to the CD release of Hopes and Fears and The Art box (2003), a box set of Art Bears material.The band returned to the studio in 1980 to make one final album, The World as it is Today (1981), before splitting up. In October 1983 Frith, Cutler and Krause reunited again when they joined Duck and Cover , a commission from the Berlin Jazz Festival , for a performance of the "Berlin Programme" in West Berlin , followed by another in February 1984 in East Berlin. The "Berlin Programme" included fragments of three Art Bears songs. In 1993 Frith, Cutler and Krause worked together again on a song project, Domestic Stories (1993) by Chris Cutler and Luts Glandien. While similar to Art Bears, the addition of Glandien's electronic music made Domestic Stories a distinctly different album.
WHAT'S IN A NAME -
I took the name Art Bears from a sentence in Jane Harrison's 'Art and Ritual' (now lost so I can't verify the actual sentence) where she says that art bears (carries) something or other - I no longer remember what. The thought - and the ambiguity of bears as both a verb and a noun - stuck. The image of an Art Bear, dangerous but cuddly, likewise.
Discography :
Hopes and Fears(1978)
Winter Songs(1979)
The World as It Is Today(1981)
And at 2003 The Art Box(6xCD box set of all Art Bears releases with live and unreleased tracks, plus remixes by other musicians
Source: Wikipedia
