An editor-at-large of Brooklyn’s Cabinet magazine, he has published numerous art reviews in periodicals such as Art Journal, Artforum, frieze, Parkett, and Texte zur Kunst. He has written catalogue essays and book chapters on Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Rosemarie Trockel, and Cosima von Bonin, among others. His book, Permission to Laugh: Humor and Politics in Contemporary German Art, was published in 2012. With Roy Grundmann, Williams directed the conference Labor in a Single Shot in Boston in November 2014.