The ‘Leap of Faith’ Was Skateboarding’s Definitive Avant-Garde Moment | How Jamie Thomas’ slam was a work of art

Is Jamie Thomas’s “leap of faith” slam qualify as physical art? Possibly according to VICE. It helped usher in an era of big shit skateboarding that has mostly passed by in favor of 90’s style creative tricks and low impact tech and style.

Sample:

“Known as the “Leap of Faith,” the stunt was featured on the skateboard company Zero’s seminal 1997 video Thrill of It All, and immediately made the sport’s history books. Overnight, the guy behind it, Jamie Thomas, a 22-year-old from Dothan, Alabama, became an industry celebrity. Two years later, he was immortalized as a character in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the sequel to which featured a level with a gap named after his famous slam at Point Loma High School. Back in real life, other skaters began gathering at the location hoping to best him. Some results are now online, including footage of Richard King, who broke his leg after plummeting like a rock to the concrete.”

…..

“Thomas’s influence remains indisputable, yet it still seems as if skateboarding has failed to grasp the Leap of Faith’s avant-garde significance. Skate videos may customarily exist merely to illustrate talent and promote brands, but Thomas’s exploits in San Diego were so inimitable that they are worthy of the consideration usually reserved for aesthetic objects. Skateboarders are fond of saying that their hobby is not a sport but an art, so it perhaps shouldn’t be too surprising that the closest comparison to Thomas’s Leap is not an athletic feat but a piece from the Met Museum’s collection —Yves Klein’s 1960 photomontage,Leap into the Void.”