LONDON.- Art on the Underground’s programme for 2025 comprises major new works from four contemporary artists. Since its conception in 2000, Art on the Underground has been at the forefront of critically engaged programming that reflects on the changing nature of public space, challenging the idea that public art is fixed.
From Victorian origins to modern marvel, 'London's Underground: The Story of the Tube' chronicles the remarkable evolution of the world's first underground railway.
Through placing trust in artists and the creative process, the programme has a renowned history of commissioning site specific work that speaks to people, places, and histories. 2025 continues that tradition with a series of commissions that allow for meaningful and expansive conversations between artists and the public. 2025 will see a large-scale collaborative artwork by Ahmet Öğüt at Stratford station, a new audio commission by Rory Pilgrim for millions of commuters at Waterloo station, and a new painting by Rudy Loewe at Brixton Underground station, continuing its series of commissions that respond to the rich history of murals in the area from the 1980s, and the wider social and political history of mural making.
In its breadth and presence across London, the 2025 programme reflects on the history and movement of the city today.
Art on the Underground’s 2025 programme features major commissions situated across London including:
• a large scale artwork by Ahmet Öğüt at Stratford Underground Station in March 2025
• a new artwork by Agnes Denes for the Spring 2025 Pocket Tube Map
• a new audio work by Rory Pilgrim for Waterloo Station in June 2025
• and a work by Rudy Loewe for the ninth Brixton Mural Programme in November 2025
Ahmet Öğüt
Stratford Underground Station
13 March 2025
In March 2025 Art on the Underground will launch a large-scale artwork with artist Ahmet Öğüt in collaboration with New Contemporaries. Öğüt is a sociocultural initiator, artist and lecturer, working across a variety of media. His new commission, Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art, will explore the role art plays in everyday life. Öğüt’s project was inspired by an incident that occurred in 2020 when a train on the Rotterdam Metro overran the stop blocks at a station located on an elevated metro line. A carriage, at risk of falling into the water beneath, was ‘saved’ by a 10-metre high public art sculpture of a whale’s tail, by architect Maarten Struijs, which prevented its fall. This visual metaphor for the power of art to save lives provided the impetus for a project that seeks to uncover many more stories. Encompassing a major installation at Stratford Tube station alongside a call out to the public for stories that champion, interrogate and celebrate how art has saved lives, the commission culminates in a prize for the most moving submission, for which Öğüt has created a sculpture akin to an award ceremony trophy which will be awarded later in 2025.
Agnes Denes: Map Projections
Spring 2025
The Spring 2025 Pocket Tube Map will feature a new artwork by Hungarian-born American artist Agnes Denes. A conceptual artist who was a pioneer of environmental art in the 1960s and 1970s, Denes has worked across a wide range of media – from monumental land art, to sculpture, poetry and intricate drawings, which she calls a form of “visual philosophy”. Denes has been invited to create an artwork for the 41st Pocket Tube Map cover that synthesises her interconnected interests in ecology, engineering, and public space. For her commission she has created an “electrified” rendering from her most iconic work, Map Projections, in which she reimagines the depictions of the earth in a series of different shapes.
Rory Pilgrim
Waterloo Station
30 June – 13 July 2025
Art on the Underground presents a new audio work produced by artist and composer Rory Pilgrim with the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk (CCSaR) programme. This programme realises an annual sound commission developed through an engagement with the CCSaR programme and the communities around Underground stations to spotlight the work of organisations who face structural barriers to sustaining space in the capital and to create and share resonances from across the city. The artwork will be heard through station speakers along the moving walkway connecting the Northern and Jubilee lines at Waterloo station for a two-week period in early July 2025. A Turner Prize nominee in 2023, Pilgrim works collaboratively and in dialogue with others, across music composition, performance, film, drawing and text, reflecting and redefining how we come together to shape social change.
Rudy Loewe
Brixton Underground Station
November 2025
Rudy Loewe’s artistic practice responds to ways in which the state shapes our remembering of history and the intentional silences in institutional archives. Loewe forms narratives and makes space for different kinds of knowledge by inviting those voices suppressed by the dominant retelling of history. Their graphic approach to painting – featuring bold, flat colours – references their background in comics and illustration and often combines text, image and sequential narrative. Loewe’s new work, launched as part of the Brixton Mural Programme, highlights the ways in which people gather and have gathered in Brixton and speaks to the sensorial experience that is Brixton today. Loewe is the ninth artist in the series of commissions at Brixton Tube station which, since 2018, has responded to the diverse narratives of the local murals painted in the 1980s, the rapid development of the area and the wider social and political history of mural making.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: “Art on the Underground is renowned around the world for transforming London’s Tube into a large public art gallery. Offering free art to the millions traveling every day, it builds on our rich history of inspiring art and design across the transport network and has become an integral part of London’s story as a creative capital. As we celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, there is so much to look forward to, with four brilliant new artworks being added to the network, as we build a better London for everyone.”
Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, said: “Art on the Underground have been bringing leading international artists to the spaces of the Tube for 25 years. In 2025, we continue this tradition, with a series of thoughtful commissions that foreground interactions with art in daily life. Across 2025, the programme will interrogate how art can save us and what it means to gather together, in shared space and with local communities. Seen and heard by millions, the 2025 programme is a response to London today, whilst always reflecting on our past and possible futures.”
Artdaily participates in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. When you purchase through our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These commissions help us continue curating and sharing the art world’s latest news, stories, and resources with our readers.
