On the occasion of the painter Jack Tworkov’s retrospective Against Extremes: Five Decades of Painting, which will be on view at The UBS Art Gallery until October 27, 2009, and the publication of The Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov, published by Yale University Press, both curator, Jason Andrew, and editor, Mira Schor, talk with Phong Bui about Tworkov’s life and work. Tworkov (1900-1982) was a significant figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Along with de Kooning, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, his gestural paintings of the early 1950s formed the basis for the New York School. Major work from this period is characterized by the use of gestural brush strokes in flame-like color. During the mid-1960s, his work took a new turn in favor of straight lines and geometric patterns, which characterize his receptiveness to the younger generation of minimalist and post-minimalist artists, most of whom were his students at the Graduate School of Yale University, including Chuck Close, Jennifer Bartlett, Brice Marden, Richard Serra, Nancy Graves, and many others (65 minutes).