Gregory Williams

Since arriving at Boston University in 2005, Gregory Williams has delivered lectures and participated in numerous conferences in Europe and the United States. An editor-at-large of Brooklyn’s Cabinet magazine, he has published art criticism in periodicals, including Artforum, frieze and Texte zur Kunst. He has written catalogue essays for exhibitions of Rosemarie Trockel (Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Kunstmuseum Basel and WIELS in Brussels) and Martin Kippenberger (Tate Modern in London), and has authored book chapters for The Black Sphinx: On the Comedic in Modern Art, John C. Welchman, ed. (Zurich: JRP/Ringier, 2010) and Regarding the Popular: High and Low Culture in the Avant-Garde and Modernism, Sascha Bru, et al., ed. (Berlin and New York: Walther de Gruyter, 2011). Most recently, his essay, “Ground Control: Painting in the Work of Cosima von Bonin,” appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Art Journal. His book, Permission to Laugh: Humor and Politics in Contemporary German Art, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2012.

Professor Williams teaches lecture courses and seminars at the undergraduate and graduate levels in modern and contemporary art and critical theory. He is currently the primary advisor for six PhD students. A recipient of several fellowships and awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany and a grant from the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, he took a leave of absence in 2008-2009 with the support of a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Getty Foundation. In 2012 he received the Frank and Lynne Wisneski Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Arts & Sciences at Boston University.