HOST: JENNIFER (00:01):
Welcome to episode number 40 of the Going for Greatness show. Today's topic is about the iconic artist Andy Warhol. I had a chance to sit down with Michael Enns. Michael worked for Andy on his painting team for seven or eight years and will share with us some of the eccentric details about Andy's life that you may not know. We will learn how this genius spent his days, how he died, and who was around him. This is an exciting episode about the iconic Andy Warhol. Here are a few highlights of my conversation with Michael Enns.
GUEST: MICHAEL (00:44):
He would pee in bottles and then spray the canvases. You know, everything was kind of like sprayed with sometimes. They were actually on. They were called an oxidation series <laugh>. So, I first met Andy in 1977. I worked part-time, and then I worked up until he died in, uh, 87 full-time, like eight years, I guess.
HOST: JENNIFER (01:09):
And now here's the rest of my conversation with Andy Warhol's painting assistant, Michael Enns. I have many questions about him as a creative genius, but more interestingly, maybe what happened at the factory, where he created the art. Did he physically do this himself?
GUEST: MICHAEL (01:31):
Andy? Sometimes, he would get involved in painting the backgrounds. Honestly, during that period, he was not invested in his art so much because he was partying, going to Studio 54, and going to the opening of a refrigerator.
HOST: JENNIFER (01:49):
What's the refrigerator?
GUEST: MICHAEL (01:50):
The opening of a refrigerator, like he was going to everything.
HOST: JENNIFER (01:54):
Gotcha. Okay. Sorry, I thought that was this club I didn't know about.
GUEST: MICHAEL (01:58):
No, there should be a club. The refrigerator <laugh>. I'd be right there. <laugh>.
I'd be first in line <laugh>.
HOST: JENNIFER (02:05):
So he was a heavy drinker, partier, drug taker, whatever.
GUEST: MICHAEL (02:10):
No, he wasn't. He was always pretty much very sober. That thing he liked to do. He liked the speed, and it kept him thin, and you know, he wouldn't eat. That's what he liked, you know, basically, he was doing like diet pills.
HOST: JENNIFER (02:24):
Andy's partying, yet his work is being churned out. So, who's creating this masterpiece? Fantastic artwork by Andy Warhol, who's doing it?
GUEST: MICHAEL (02:34):
Rupert was pretty much the art director. He knew Andy's taste, so we would get the Polaroid. Rupert would have these half-tone shots done to make the silk screens. Then, after the halftone was done, it would be blown up to the size it needed, usually more than 40 inches. You know, sometimes we would do things eight feet silk screens, did some huge ones. Then there was the other crew, and that was me. I was in charge of color. We would take the different colors. I instructed, "Oh, we're gonna start with pink, and then we're gonna go into red, and then we're gonna go into orange. We would do variations of things, doing proofs of the print. Those were all called the trial proofs. There were some beautiful trial proofs, but they would only pick one.
HOST: JENNIFER (03:26):
I wanna understand you start with the trial proof and then
GUEST: MICHA (03:29):
That's just for the additions. Not for the paintings, because the paintings were usually just portraits and the portraits. It was all done the same way. Each portrait was done the same way. There was a white lady color and a white man color. We had a black man color, and we had a black woman color. Usually, the black woman color. We had to make it the white man color <laugh>. So I, especially Diana Ross, didn't wanna be so dark, so wow. We had to do her twice because she didn't like how dark she was.
HOST: JENNIFER (04:01):
Wow. Okay. Geez. All right, so she came to your studio.
GUEST: MICHAEL (04:05):
She never came to our studio. Nobody would come to that studio. We were downtown on Dwayne Street. Andy was up at Union Square. We would bring up everything we did to Andy afterward, and he never once came to the silk screen studio because he didn't like the smell. He didn't want anything to happen to his health.
HOST: JENNIFER (04:25):
Wow, okay. Yeah. At what point is he creating the art? His team makes the silk screens and brings them to him. At what point is he putting his hands on the brushes or whatever he's creating?
GUEST: MICHAEL (04:38):
He took the photograph. He did do that. Because that was part of how you were paying so much money. 'cause you get to hang out with Andy and probably have lunch. That was the big thing. Plus, you have to have clown white all over your face. This is the way the portraits were done. They would put clown white all over the woman's face. Then there would be hot red lipstick, always photographed in black. Eventually, it turned into just a black-and-white photograph. After that was done, we would get the big picture for the silkscreen and start cutting. Usually, we had to take out chins and elongate the net. This was all Photoshop at that time, but it was all Photoshop with an exacto knife.
HOST: JENNIFER (05:22):
That is dating yourself Photoshop with an Exacto knife.
GUEST: MICHAEL (05:26):
Exactly.
HOST: JENNIFER (05:27):
I wonder what Andy Warhol would think about NFT. What would he say about what's going on with the art world?
GUEST: MICHAEL (05:33):
Oh, he would've jumped on the bandwagon for sure. He was always a bandwagonjumper. He would love it. He never said anything negative about anything. He was basically like, live and let live. Who
HOST: JENNIFER (05:44):
Was hanging around Andy Warhol in the eighties?
GUEST: MICHAEL (05:47):
One that always stands out the most is Victor. Hugo. Victor was Halton's lover, or I should say whore. One exciting thing that Andy was doing was that he did it on his own, where they would paint all the canvas copper. They had these big things of copper. We called them the paintings because what they did was they basically would piss in the bottles and then spray the canvases. You know, everything was kind of like sprayed with sometimes. They were on, and they loved Victor's piss because it was really strong. It had a beautiful, beautiful patina <laugh>.
HOST: JENNIFER (06:26):
Are you kidding me?
GUEST: MICHAEL (06:27):
I'm not kidding. Victor's was powerful.
HOST: JENNIFER (06:30):
What happened to this painting series?
GUEST: MICHAEL (06:32):
They were called the Oxidation Series <laugh>.
HOST: JENNIFER (06:41):
What happened to those? Those have been sold off, or they're in galleries.
GUEST: MICHAEL (06:45):
Oh yeah. Worth millions. Millions.
HOST: JENNIFER (06:48):
Who knew peeing on something would later produce millions and millions? That's incredible.
GUEST: MICHAEL (06:53):
Yeah. But we did some other cool things, like taking a portrait in fluorescence. The only way you could see the portrait was by turning on a black light, and those were cool. And then we did another one where I think we just took varnish, did the portrait, and did it all in. We would put the varnish down and then put diamond dust on top.
HOST: JENNIFER (07:14):
What's that series called?
GUEST: MICHAEL(07:15):
It wasn't a series. It was pretty much what we did. That was something that Rupert Smith brought to Andy's art. I mean, that just showed how much influence Rupert had on Andy's art because Rupert had been doing the diamond dust for years before Andy started using it. Under Rupert's behest, he started using it, which was very successful, like he did the shoes, which were a Halston-related thing. These big black prints. They were gorgeous. The shadows were fantastic, too. Those were very abstract. I don't know if they're very; the shadows are popular now. It's a very abstract image. But Andy liked, really liked abstraction.
HOST: JENNIFER (08:00):
Did you sit down and have conversations with Andy regularly?
GUEST: MICHAEL (08:04):
You couldn't have conversations with him because it was always reverted to something sexual. So you just tried to steer away from that as much as possible. He was constantly hitting on you. Talk about sexual harassment. Oh my god, it was just nonstop while I worked there.
HOST: JENNIFER (08:20):
I read that he was a virgin his whole life. I
GUEST: MICHAEL (08:23):
Doubt that.
HOST: JENNIFER (08:23):
What was his favorite piece of art?
GUEST: MICHAEL (08:25):
That he did himself? It was probably the Marilyn Monroe because that sent 'em over the top.
HOST: JENNIFER (08:32):
The Marilyn.
GUEST: MICHAEL (08:33):
Yeah. They're just so iconic and beautiful, I have to say. Beautiful and ugly at the same time. Beautiful and ugly. I worked with Rauschenberg on a couple of little projects, and he always told me that the best of Andy's art was the ones that people liked the least and the people who wanted the least, which were the electric chairs. Rauschenberg, I think, liked the electric chairs the most.
HOST: JENNIFER (08:59):
It's interesting. Any idea why?
GUEST: MICHAEL (09:00):
They were powerful peace, and you know, who wants electric chairs hanging up in their beautiful home? There's nothing pretty about an electric chair.
HOST: JENNIFER (09:08):
Remind me, he died of a complication from surgery, right? Is that right?
GUEST: MICHAEL (09:14):
He had a heart attack after the surgery. He was all hooked up to monitors and everything, but the nurse fell asleep. He had a private nurse in there, but they had hired, and the nurse fell asleep, and Andy died unconscious in his bed, which was just downright shocking. That was one of the worst days of my life. You know how they always say the good die young, and he shouldn't have died so young.
HOST: JENNIFER(09:39):
Sounds like just a negligent nurse.
GUEST: MICHAEL (09:42):
Yeah. Honestly,
HOST: JENNIFER (09:43):
That's terrible. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Lexon Hill Hospital in NYC.
HOST: JENNIFER (09:47):
Is there any other fun fact you think would be necessary to share about Andy Warhol?
GUEST: MICHAEL (09:53):
He liked being a model. He liked being a Zoli model. I remember going into the factory and him saying, wow, you got fat? I said, Andy, I weigh 160 pounds. I mean, no, that's fat. That's fat. And I said, well, how much do you weigh? I weigh 117 pounds. I'm a Zoli model. <laugh>. And it was, uh, it was like, oh God, God.
HOST: JENNIFER (10:15):
<laugh>. He'd love ozempic now, I guess, huh?
GUEST: MICHAEL (10:18):
He already had ozempic kind of brain because he didn't eat. He just had a little carrot or celery or something. He wasn't much of an eater at all. You know? He didn't appreciate food, honestly. He ate Campbell's soup. Really? Yeah. That was his taste buds.
HOST: JENNIFER (10:34):
That Campbell Soup series is Wow. Amazing. Huh? Did you work on that?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
No, that was way before my time. You know, that was like done back in the sixties. I started with Andy 77, the first project I did for him. What is art? And he would say it's come on a cracker.
HOST: JENNIFER (10:50):
Seriously? Yeah.
GUEST: MICHAEL (10:52):
Wow. The icing on the cake was when Andy died. It was just shocking because, you know, 'cause he was shot in 1968. She wasn't an employee. She was a, you know, wannabe Andy Warhol superstar Valerie Solanas. And she belonged to this club called Society to Cut Up Men Scum. Andy didn't use her in some film or something, or edit, edit her out, and, and she came in and shot him point blank in the stomach.
Valerie Solanas (11:18):
Is his gallbladder surgery related to being shot?
GUEST: MICHAEL (11:21):
Absolutely. The gallbladder thing was complicated by that, and for a long time, he was trying all different kinds of things, but the thing he was really into was the crystals. And he would always buy all these different crystals and put 'em on his stomach, and all these crystals would help him. And some charlatan crystal lady had him by the, you know, by his crystals.
HOST: JENNIFER (11:45):
Thanks for listening to episode number 40 of the Going for Greatness show. If you found something interesting in Andy Warhol's eccentric Past, maybe you'll share this episode with a friend or two. Until next time, thank you for listening to The Going for Greatness Show.