Crisis, turmoil, correction, downturn. Recession. The recent events in the global markets have gone by many names. But what about what’s happening in the art market? In late November, Alexandra Peers authored an article in the Wall Street Journal that, well, called it:

“The art market’s crash — for that is what it is — threatens to remake the art world.”

On December 13, the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) held the panel discussion ““The Global Economy and the Art Market: A New Perspective in Uncertain Times” at the New York Historical Society, and the first thing the moderator, journalist Lindsay Pollock, asked her panelists to do was to describe, in a word, what happened to the contemporary art market this fall. Here are their answers:

William Goetzmann, Director of the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management: “I would say a collapse but that’s because I’ve been watching the financial markets too much.”

Mary Hoeveler, formerly Citigroup Art Advisory Services Managing Director: “Rapid decline.”

Howard Rachofsky, Dallas-based collector: “Anxious.”

Roland Augustine, President of ADAA and co-owner Luhring Augustine Gallery: “Unprecedented.”

Richard Armstrong, recently appointed Director, of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: “Stabilizing.”

“No one said the C word I was expecting,” Pollock joked when they had finished.