NEWS

 

Ziethen Launches Archives Effort With Donation of His Collection

 

KARL-HEINZ ZIETHEN, owner of the world's most extensive collection of juggling memorabilia, will leave that collection to the IJA after his death. Ziethen was the IJA's honored guest at the Baltimore convention and received its first Extraordinary Service Award. He also entertained conventioneers with a showing of the wide variety of films he has collected on juggling

acts from all over the world.      

 

Ziethen, a 45-year-old resident of West Berlin, was briefly a performing juggler himself, but for the past 15 years has devoted his life solely to personal contact with professional and amateur jugglers and toward enlargement of his collection. It now requires more than 150 file drawers to contain the biographies, posters, programs, videotapes, newspapers and more than 10,000 photographs of the 4,000 jugglers he has researched.

 

HIS RESEARCH LED TO PUBLICATION IN 1983 of two volumes of "4,000 Years of Juggling," the most comprehensive work on the subject ever produced. He followed that in 1985 with "Juggling, The Art and Its Artists." He has published several other books in both West and East Germany, and has served as consultant for numerous exhibitions of juggling memorabilia.

 

Ziethen said he decided to leave his collection to the IJA so that all jugglers may enjoy the material in public display in perpetuity. He also said he hopes it will prompt other collectors and individuals to make similar donations so that the IJA can build a world-class archives and museum.

 

Rich Chamberlin, chairman of the IJA board, commented on the tremendous importance of the Ziethen collection to the organization. He said, "This takes the IJA from being a magazine and convention into a new field of archives and research. The long-range goal is to become the recognized authority on juggling worldwide, so that anyone who wants to know about the field will come to us. Ziethen's generous contribution will help establish us in that position. On down the road we want to open a museum for public display of the Ziethen material and the rest of the IJA collection. Up to now people have left collections with family or friends, but the IJA's new efforts will allow us to guarantee perpetual care of someone's life work."

 

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS APPOINTED CHAMBERLIN as IJA archivist to begin cataloging the small amount of memorabilia the IJA has already collected. Chamberlin said, "This will help give us experience in archiving so we'll be able to handle the Ziethen collection when we receive it."

 

Anyone interested in the IJA archives project is encouraged to contact Chamberlin at Kenmore NY.

 

 

The IJA's cash position improved during the year from $73,605 to $100,550. Anyone interested in a full financial report should contact Rose through the IJA office.