Gianni Versace, the lauded Italian fashion designer, was shot and killed outside of his home by Andrew Cunanan for no apparent reason. Eight days later, Cunanan committed suicide on a boat.

Harry Pussy was a band that broke many rules of decorum, primarily those regarding music. They’ve been hailed as the most abrasive band America’s ever known.

So, what do the two have in common? A: Both were part of a South Beach in the early ‘90s, one that’s very different from today.

Kevin Arrow is an artist who experienced Miami Beach during this protracted, lawless period, the era that came long after the ‘50s and ‘60s Deco boom and shortly after the ‘70s cocaine- and money-frenzied comedown. He lived on Espanola and Michigan Avenue, in what is now an increasingly commercial and expensive area.

This and the rest of South Beach during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was a frontier zone, a “wild west” where, according to Arrow, “rents were low and turnout for events was relatively low, too.” Fringe figures residing there included a large elderly population, the drug-addicted and/or destitute, sex workers, creative types, working families, a gay community, moneyed royal classes, and celebrities.

Regarding the artists that lived there, Arrow said, “We were largely ignored and therefore not afraid to fail.”

Versace was murdered on July 15, 1997, right outside of his Ocean Drive mansion (which is being auctioned off soon on September 17^th). He bought it in 1992 for $2.9 million, the same year that Adris Hoyos and Bill Orcutt starting rehearsing as Harry Pussy at a space some blocks down on Lincoln Road.

There, Hoyos developed her punishing drumming and high-pitched screeching alongside Orcutt’s mix of atonal, feedback-laden drone and detuned, messily virtuosic melodies. Mark Freehan and Dan Hosker occasionally joined them on second guitar as well, both of whom were in the Trash Monkeys (Hosker sadly passed away last year).

Harry Pussy took noise rock to its hazardous and sexually charged conclusion; their cerebral violence and raw experimentalism inspired a large wave of musicians that continues today. They broke up the same year that Versace was murdered, 1997. During that year, as Arrow states in an interview with Hunter Braithwaite, “a large chunk of South Florida was in a slow-motion grand mal seizure and large segments of its creative community was leaving.”

He also described for me this surreal experience following Versace’s murder: “I was woken up by police and news helicopters. They remained in the air for the entire week after his shooting. I was fairly sure I spotted Andrew Cunanan the night before he died. I spotted him walking on the street in North Beach, not far from the boat he was hiding in.”

Today at the Bass Museum, which was founded on the edge of South Beach (21^st street) in 1963, Arrow will be hosting the next edition of tc: temporary contemporary, a city wide public arts program put together by the Bass in partnership with the City of Miami Beach.

Arrow will be showing a video he took on Super-8 film of the demolition of the Versace mansion, which took place in 2010, set to a soundtrack of music by Harry Pussy. The video has a washed out, nostalgic coloration unique to the format, and a creepily appropriate Harry Pussy song to go with it (titled Untitled (aka Nose Ring)). It transposes two vastly different moments in Miami’s cultural history, but it also suggests that they are one and the same—an ending and a beginning, a cyclical thing.

Also on view will be Holly Hunt, composed of drummer Beatriz Monteavaro and guitarist Gavin Perry – a pair of visual artists who also have a long and storied history here in Miami. Monteavaro played in a couple iconic sludge metal bands, including Cavity and Floor, and saw Harry Pussy rehearse a few times. Holly Hunt’s music is meditatively loud and heavy. It’s sonic sculpturing with a more rhythmic edge, and they’ll also play a soundtrack over Arrow’s film.

Just because it wasn’t what it used to be, doesn’t mean that South Beach is totally bereft of this independently minded artistic ardor. Rat Bastard, a local (and global) noise legend who’s put on the International Noise Conference in Miami for the past decade, still rehearses and records countless bands in his South Beach apartment (his now defunct Esync studio was also on Lincoln Road in the ‘90s, where Harry Pussy’s first few recording were done).

Bill Orcutt, the ex-guitarist for Harry Pussy, has been playing an abstracted, clustered, and heartfelt blues on a 4-string acoustic guitar, and his solo output has shown the subdued yet innovative territory of quieter noise. He played late last year on Lincoln Road at the Audiotheque, nearby his old practice space—which is now the Books & Books retailer/café.

Kevin Arrow with Holly Hunt | tc: temporary contemporary

Friday, July 19^th at Bass Museum of Art terrace, 2100 Collins Avenue, 7PM-9PM

Free for members, $10 for non-members