I’m unsure whether this business of consequence in art is real or something I’ve ginned up in my head.

Take for example the Indian fiber artist Sagarika Sundaram, who makes grandiose colorful sculptures of a kind of felt she makes herself. They’re big, spectacular, eye-catching. Clearly the province of the wealthy, and clearly this artist comes from money. The pieces are I suppose expressionistic, but the marks aren’t really marks or gestures. They’re colors of fiber appliqued in, compressed in to the matrix of fiber fabric she creates. The pieces I’ve seen convey less emotion than craft; picture for example similarly-sized and colored quilts, which they’re much like. Perhaps in her technique the issue of nature v culture comes into play.

Are they consequential? Is any one a piece we would single out and say, “Yes, this is affective, it’s powerful, it’s rich with meaning,” or “Yes, this is the breakthrough piece, this piece makes us rethink what we’ve seen of recent art, this piece is transformative of our vision or our thinking.” Is this body of work transformative? Do we see how she goes about her work and think, “Aaah, that’s new,” or “That’s a twist, I wonder where that came from, look what this reveals to us about art or humanity or the human condition”?

Is it that when I see video of the artist at work and when I imagine the artist at work, beginning a new piece, for example, mentally I hear the artist saying, “This time I want one shaped like butterfly wings, and I want red, green, and gold in it,” and then maybe she even sketches it out a bit, and then she gets to work and makes the thing over the course of a couple days or weeks or whatever it is — and I just don’t see much happening in that?

Then what do I imagine happening elsewhere?

Is it that I don’t see the Indian artist’s work as dimensional? Is it dimensionality I’m wanting more of?

Is it that no such art is available now? Is consequence forever lost to us in the studio arts?

Have I deluded myself into believing in consequence as a dimension of art making I require, when so much of what I’ve done is inconsequential?

Do I get off the train on the way to consequence, in favor of something else?
Do I simply become bored or disinterested?
What do I believe?