New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz will give a talk at Art Basel Miami Beach on Thursday, December 4, at 4:30pm. Its title:

“This is the End: The Rising Tide of Money Goes Out of the Art World and All Boats are Sinking”

As a journalist (as Saltz IDs himself), is it responsible for him to use such a title for a talk being given at an art fair? Perhaps he’ll be telling his audience the bitter truth, perhaps there’s more than a hint of irony in here somewhere. A few years ago at Basel’s Swiss edition, back at the height of the boom, Art+Auction magazine sponsored a panel playfully titled “Is Money the New Art Criticism?”; in a recent op-ed in The Art Newspaper dealer and newsletter writer Josh Baer speculated, referring to market doldrums, “What is the silver lining in all this cloudiness? Perhaps a return to the importance of museums, critics and alternative spaces for validation and the introduction of new art.” My how times have changed. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Peers tallies the damage the crash — yes, she deems it that — will do to dealers, auction houses and artists. One wonders what Jerry will tell us.