It’s good to have something to gawp at when one is waiting for one’s Tube, it makes it so much easier to avoid eye contact with fellow passengers, which is of course a golden rule of big city commuting. Good news then a series of posters have been commissioned by London Underground to mark the Tube’s 150th anniversary, shining like beacons through the fog of ads hawking perfume and West End shows.

The idea of travellers being disconnected despite their proximity to each other is central to the poster Total Stranger by Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing, one of 15 artists selected to come up with a design. She held a blind lottery for one person to be photographed travelling on the Tube, with the winner remaining anonymous. Other big names to contribute include fellow Turner recipient Wolfgang Tillmans, who went in an altogether more abstract direction with his Freischwimmer Tfl 150 image. The collection will be on display at four stations: Southwark, Gloucester Road, St James’s Park and London Bridge, and there are limited edition prints going on sale this month, with proceeds going towards the Art on the Underground project.

Gillian Wearing,
Total Stranger, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist

Goshka Macuga,
I came by Tube, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist

Sarah Lucas,
UD, 2013
Copyright the artist

Wolfgang Tillmans,
Freischwimmer TfL 150, 2013
Copyright the artist

Martha Rosler,
Go Underground, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist

Corin Sworn,
Waiting for a Train, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist

ris Khan,
Over and Over and Over, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist

Nedko Solakov,
Father and Son, 2013
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
Copyright the artist