Artists Head for Afghanistan to Capture a Modern Picture of War

From the violent scenes depicted on the Elgin Marbles to Paul Nash's First World War oils and Picasso's terrifying Guernica, artists have always recorded international conflicts. But as the business of waging war grows more hi-tech, the role of the war artist has become increasingly problematic.

This week the Imperial War Museum will announce it is to send three artists to Afghanistan to reflect the experience of modern warfare. Those chosen will shock many. None is a conventional visual artist who uses traditional oil or watercolours, so there will be no commemorative canvases to hang when they return.

The minimalist conceptual art duo Langlands and Bell, both urbanites in their forties, will be travelling to work in the unfamiliar landscape of Afghanistan, along with the photographer Paul Seawright, best known for his impressions of the divisions in Northern Ireland.

'I was nervous about this commission,' Seawright, 34, told BBC radio's Front Row this weekend. 'I had experience from Northern Ireland of people who come in without knowing anything about the situation.'

Seawright has also been alarmed by the MoD advice he has received about the use of flak jackets and satellite phones. He will make three visits in total, aiming to complete a body of photographic work by September.

He says he will be 'avoiding militaristic images' and concentrating instead on displaced communities and mine-clearance work. The photographer will also work with the relief agencies and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The selection of Londoners Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell may well prove more controversial. Much of their art so far has resembled architectural ground-plans and has been described by them as 'simultaneously sculpture, painting, furniture and architecture'.

A word of warning has come from Peter Howson, who was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to go to Bosnia in 1993. The work he produced provoked controversy and led him into a period of mental illness.

'It is right to send artists to Afghanistan,' Howson told the BBC, 'but they should not go in with any expectations, because it will be different and probably worse. You have got to go in with your imagination wide open.'

Thirty-five works were exhibited at the Imperial War Museum in 1994. The exhibition caused a row about the validity of painting 'imaginary' events. Controversy centred on his painting of a brutal rape scene, Croatian and Muslim . The painting was bought by David Bowie, who said he wanted it to stay in Britain.