The collection of Neil Rector is comprised of three disparate bodies of art: American colorist art, contemporary Russian art of the Moscow school, and the Slovene collective Neue Slowenische Kunst, featuring Laibach and Irwin. Each of the groups in Rector's collection came into being as the result of political, ideological and social fracture in Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century. Therefore, they all respond to a dominant ideology. The colorists must contend with formalism in the United States, the Russians are up against socialist realism, and Laibach and Irwin address the very system that promotes and creates ideology, thusly opposing every one. Their vision is unique for they look beyond the common and accepted styles of the time. With a historical eye, these artists recognize that there is danger in sameness, that the space of art is compromised without challenges to its validity. For all three groups of Rector's collection, that intent is not for art to create life, or even to reflect it, but is located in the creation of new ideas about how one sees.
While there is much to make these three bodies of work appear separate from each other, there is much that draws them together. Firstly, these three bodies of work are under appreciated by the American audience. All three are culturally specific and some knowledge or insight is imperative for maximum enjoyment of this body of work. While all three bodies can be enjoyed aesthetically, the work is increasingly provocative the greater knowledge one has. This collection represents a narrow slice of life. Three distinct groups of artists have remained faithful to their unique styles, which represent a particular vision predicated by cultural, political and artistic beliefs. As represented by the art within it, Rector's collection is the result of experiment and experience. Each new painting adds a deeper dimension to complement the other works within the collection. What these paintings reveal about one another is that there are many different ways of seeing. As the Bauhaus has taught these artists, the material conditions its manner of perception.