When you think Andy Warhol, you think New York City. But in May 1966, the pop art impresario brought his show to San Francisco, and The Chronicle was there to capture the moment — and critique the experience.

The paper sent a music writer, a society writer and a photographer to cover the one-of-a-kind multimedia event at the Fillmore Auditorium, and a recent trip to the archive turned up photo negatives from the night of the show. It’s likely these images haven’t been seen for more than 50 years.

Warhol’s multimedia project was called the “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” and the performers were various “superstars” from the Factory, the art collective that he ran in Midtown Manhattan. The show included screenings of Warhol’s films, accompanied by music performed by the Velvet Underground, fronted by Nico, and the band Mothers, an early version of the Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Artistic dancing and performances by Mary Woronov and Gerard Malanga also helped spice up the night.

An icon of the art world coming to San Francisco was a big story. Chronicle writer John Wasserman was the first to interview Warhol a few days before the “EPI” event. “The show is so simple, there’s nothing to explain or understand,” he quoted the artist as saying.

Warhol also weighed in on what he said creates pop art: “A ‘pop’ person is like a vacuum that eats up everything. He’s made up from what he’s seen. ... Television has done it, you don’t have to read anymore. Books will go out, television will stay. Movies will go out, television will stay. And that’s why people are becoming plastic.”

Nico, the singer-actor, tried to clarify that statement: “We have a gratified personality,” she was quoted as saying. “Everything is just there, we don’t have to fight for anything. And that’s the way it should go — it would make things easier. There shouldn’t be a battle all the time, constant competition. You understand what I mean?”

Um, sure.

Chronicle columnist Merla Zellerbach also had her turn to interview Warhol. She described him as having a kind of soft-flowing velvety speech, devoid of depth and emotion. The reporter observed that Warhol rarely smiled or emerged from a doll-like trance. “California will be the first state to go nude,” he cooed to her. “I think it’s wonderful. The people are gorgeous here. The scenery’s so gorgeous. People are cleaner and more gorgeous than anywhere else.”

(We couldn’t agree more.)

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Despite the fawning words about California and Warhol signing a soup can label for Zellerbach, The Chronicle’s Wasserman wasn’t impressed with the show. He wrote that “EPI” was “nothing more than a bad condensation of all the bum trips of the Trips Festival that January” in San Francisco.

“The worst thing is that it was noncreative and hence not artistic. It was not new at all. Everything but the whips has been done better here.”

More from Chronicle Vault

•Going gonzo: It seems like an appropriate time to celebrate the Tubes, one of San Francisco’s weirdest bands of all time.

•Punk in S.F. : Let’s take a look back at when the Sex Pistols invaded San Francisco with their lewd, crude antics.

•‘Death of the Hippies’: In 1967, San Francisco residents threw a Haight-Ashbury funeral for the counterculture movement.

•Silent ceremony: When two mimes got married in the middle of Union Square, everybody heard about it.

From the Archive is a weekly column by Bill Van Niekerken, the library director of The Chronicle, exploring the depths of the newspaper’s archive. It’s part of Chronicle Vault, a twice-weekly newsletter highlighting more than 150 years of San Francisco stories. It is edited by Tim O’Rourke, The Chronicle’s assistant managing editor and executive producer of SFChronicle.com. Sign up for the newsletter here, and follow Chronicle Vault on Instagram. Contact Bill at bvanniekerken@sfchronicle.com and Tim at torourke@sfchronicle.com.