Talking trash with the art world’s favourite comedian, Joe Lycett

Despite an interview in 2011 stating that Joe loves both graphic design and comedy “equally”, throughout the 2010s his practice took a back seat as he became a household comedy name. Many will have grown to know Joe through his softly spoken tales of fighting establishment, from avoiding parking fines or complaining about the 30p charge to use the toilet at London Euston station. But there was always an element of performance to these tales which placed him into a more creative league of comedians. Recent stunts – like changing his name to Hugo Boss or pretending to shred £10,000 in reaction to David Beckham’s partnership with Qatar – have only cemented the idea that Joe Lycett is an artist rather than comedian. He’s like Marina Abramović, only from Birmingham rather than Belgrade, and a bit funnier.

However looking back through Joe’s output for the past decade, there are multiple details that display his excitable love for creativity. There are his now infamous paintings, of course, but also smaller flourishes like foil printing in his book Parsnips, Buttered, or the fact Mr. Bingo recently accompanied him on tour. “When I’m happy, I am happy to be making art and when I’m stressed, I use it as a crutch really,” he says of the role artmaking plays in his life. “I don’t want to be wanky about it, but I just really enjoy making things. I am under no illusion that I’m the best at any of the things I do, but I love trying them. For so long I wouldn’t do things because of the critic in my head saying ‘that’s terrible’, but nothing gets done then. I really want to encourage other people, and myself, to make stuff for the sake of making it.”

The latest project by Joe is more traditional than his previous artistic explorations, creating a beautifully designed book in homage to one of his favourite objects: bins. A fascination that began while filming his episode of Who Do You Think You Are, Joe caught the DOP on set “shooting this bin overlooking a really gorgeous scene of a farmyard”, he recalls. “I completely got why he was shooting it, I loved it. I took a picture and obsessed over it. Then, I just started shooting bins. And once you start looking for them, you can’t stop.”

The bin as a piece of public design from a social anthropology stand point is also explored in Bins, Bins, Bins. One chapter features an essay by historian of protest, social movements and public space Katrina Navickas, detailing “the history of public bins and how they evolved – a lot of it is tied in with women’s rights, it’s a really interesting piece,” Joe explains. Elsewhere is a piece by Biffa employee Al Little, who Joe found via a Twitter call out. “I told him what the book was about, sent him some pictures of bins and he said: ‘Ah yes, the continental 1-100, she’s a beauty’. I thought he was perfect.” A comedic sentiment kickstarts the book, however, via an introduction from Joe as well as a foreword by actress and writer Daisy May Cooper (who famously went to the BAFTAs in a bin bag). “Her foreword is so funny,” adds Joe. “This is the last line of it: ‘Umm, what else do I know about bins? Daniel Lambert told me in year eight that bin men earn £100,000 a year, which I suspect might be a lie because he also told me that his dad was a ghost.’ That’s the stuff you’re getting from her.”

As shown in Bins, Bins, Bins, there is a constant connection to comedy in any piece of Joe’s visual output. The two are one of the same, requiring the same confident mindset of releasing a personal thought into the world in order to connect with others. “There is a sort of madness to doing stand up. You’ve got to have a desire to say something I suppose, or at the very simplest a madness to get you onto stage to show off – and with the level of threat that if the audience don’t laugh, you’re fucked,” he says. “It’s one thing to do a play or a monologue where there is a safety net, but to go on stage and just say what you think – and think that is a reasonable thing to do – is mad.” Joe Ponders whether this tendency of ignoring barriers others may falter at might put you in a “better position” to be a creative. “The psychology of it I don’t fully understand, but the huge barrier for loads of people to be creative is that they think they will be judged and they think it’s shit. That’s the thing I’d like people to get over.”

For Joe, playing with both practices interchangeably benefits the other, too. “Often I’ll do a painting and it will make me laugh and I’ll put it in a stand up show – they become extra gags essentially. I don’t see them as separate things, really, they overlap.” This also leads the artist to endless possibilities of what his next project or medium may be. When discussing what he may turn his hand to next, “a huge rolodex of stuff” comes to mind, from 3D explorations and perhaps large-scale sculptures. His references are vast too, listing off the Escadaria Selarón steps he saw while filming an episode of Travel Man (“Immediately I thought ‘I'll just tile Birmingham’”), to recalling the moment he was moved to tears at a Turner exhibition (“I was like what the fuck has happened to me – I’ve gone mad!”).

Back in Joe’s studio, his archive of creative tools speak to any of these future possibilities. After all, his initial brief for the space was that he wanted it to be a “sweet shop for a creative” – and that it is. “If I want to be painting something that can be happening in seconds or if I want to make a film, I can do that. It's all there. Sculpture, whatever. And it does act like that! Every time I get into a new discipline I’m so excited by it.” Currently it’s ceramics he’s focusing on. “It’s such a lovely thing to gift people. Here is a plate that I made and you can have your dinner on it. Lovely.” Looking forward, it might be metal work – “I’m sure I’d love that” – or even “open a winery!” Joe lists. “Basically, I want to do it all but I haven’t got the time and, at some point, you just think it will have to be a book about bins then. I’ll focus on bins.”

Bins, Bins, Bins is available via Hurtwood books or Joe’s website directly here. All profits go towards Queens Heath Pride.