‘I am obsessed,' comic admits

Joe Lycett is to release a limited-edition art book celebrating  ‘the beautiful British bin’ .

It will feature 78 images of the comedian and artist’s ‘favourite bins’ and six original paintings of bits of trash.

Lycett said: ‘I am obsessed with bins and have thousands of pictures of them. I’m not well. I hope other people also enjoy my pictures of bins.’

One of the four types of premium paper used to print the book  is even  made from rubbish –  recycled coffee cups – while the cover is said to resemble a ‘gay bin bag’, created with black and holographic foils.

Publishers Hurtwood Press say: ‘A riot of colour, texture and literal rubbish, this beautiful, limited-edition book reassesses bins, acknowledging them as beautiful, humble and horrible, able to see the absolute worst of us and carry on regardless.’

And they add, presumably at Lycett’s instruction: ‘It’s truly wanky stuff.’

Captions for photos of bins in the book include: ‘A bin like a small bundle of dried rosemary in the pocket of a pimp’; or ‘a bin like a reassuring beam of autumnal sunlight on the leatherette interior of an executive car’.

According to the publicity: ‘Each bin comes with its own unique description written by the author when he was drunk.’

Bins includes a foreword by Daisy May Cooper – who famously went to the Baftas wearing a bin bag – a ‘thought-provoking’  piece by Al Little, Yorkshire regional general manager of Biffa bins, and an academic essay on the history of bins by Katrina Navickas, an historian of public space and landscape in the UK.

Lycett previously told photographer Jonathan Daniel Pryce on his Photographic Memory that he always wanted to make a coffee table book and picked bins because they are ‘weirdly compelling... everyone's surrounded by them constantly and yet we all kind of ignore them.’

‘When I've not been writing jokes or recording podcasts, I have spent hours of my life wandering about, photographing bins and getting a lot out of it, really enjoying that process. I'm now obsessed with bins.

‘The people I'm making the book with think about 80 bins is about right for it… I’m at 96 and I really don't want to lose the other 16. It's like killing your babies but killing a bin. It's so absurd, it's hell.’

Lycett previously curated some of the thousands of photos he has taken of bins on an Instagram page.

Only 1,000 copies of this book, which Lycett designed with Billie Temple,  by have been made. Each one is numbered and signed by Lycett,

It will be on sale from 9am on March 2 via Lycett’s website, priced £95.

Bins will also be on sale at selected retailers including the V&A, Royal Academy and  Hatchards in London; Midlands Arts Centre, Ikon Gallery, Voce Books and Heath Books in Birmingham and  UNITOM in Manchester.

All profits will go to Queens Heath Pride.

• Pictures of the book taken by Jack Spicer Adams

Published: 24 Feb 2023