Modern quilts are kind of two things. One is quilts that follow the aesthetics of later-period modern art, because it's popular and having a distinct style makes it easy to produce items to sell. The other is more inline with the objectives of modern art: a deliberate examination and deconstruction of quilting as a practice with a goal of exploring what a quilt is/ can be.
Is it a still a bow-tie quilt if it's just one giant bow-tie block? What about improvising something really structured and precise like a double-wedding ring? Just how photo-realistic a portrait can I make out of fabric pieces? I think that kind of stuff is really cool, but it's also less common than just the aesthetic type. Most people aren't making art quilts; they just want to follow a good pattern and have a nice product at the end of it. No shame in that, but I'm gonna roll my eyes if you try and tell me it's deeper than a nice log cabin quilt made out of civil war prints.