Not necessarily. A piece from The Wall Street Journal last week explained that the failure of a number of large banks may put their corporate art collections back on the market on the cheap:

Companies in trouble sell whatever can raise them money, and art collections are but one more asset. Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm brought down by the Enron scandal, for instance, turned two floors of its Chicago offices into a gallery showroom in 2002, selling more than 2,000 art works over a five-day period. In 2006, the New York futures broker Refco Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection the previous year while under investigation for hiding $430 million in debt, sold 321 photographs for $9.7 million at Christie’s auction house over a three-day period.

And today a Dutch painter named Norbertus announced that he’s pegging his prices to the Dow Jones industrial average. From the press release:

Using the Dow’s level of 10,000 as a benchmark, Norbertus will discount prices for his work when the market goes below 10,000 and increase prices when it goes above 10,000. At a Dow level of 8,500, purchasers will receive a 15% discount on his paintings.

Why would he do this? Norbertus is confident the ride below 10,000 will not last and hopes to send a positive message, “I wholeheartedly believe in the recovery and future of the financial markets.” He is convinced the current crisis originates simply out of sentiment, “The market will turn around as it always has, hence, my willingness to tie my pricing to the Dow Jones.”

Of course, in times of economic downturn, one would expect the prices of nonessential purchases like cultural goods to fall. (Which may explain why Sotheby’s stock price has fallen 72.6 percent over the last year.) But tying your prices to the Dow may be just the right gimmick to attract collectors who are cash-strapped by the liquidity crisis.

Note, of course, that all these things are good for art lovers — and not necessarily for art investors. I’ve seen a couple of stories recently that quote people who say works of art may be a safer place to invest one’s savings than the stock market or even Treasury bonds. But as the George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen wrote in an aside in today’s Times, the market for contemporary art assets may soon “plummet.” A recent article in The Times of London also quoted an art insurance and valuation expert implying that art works should be purchased for their aesthetic, rather than their economic, value: “There is an urban myth that fine art and antiques are recession-proof. This is wrong. This market lags behind the economic cycle by around a year to 18 months. So people should not rely on it.”
 

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