Check It. ReALIze at L.A. Live.

This very cool architectural art piece of Muhammad Ali is currently just outside the Staples Center at L.A. Live. It is an aluminum structure, with 1,300 custom boxing speed bags making up Ali's image, and miles of stainless steel cables. After two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, it's finished--and on display to the public first in Los Angeles, then onto New York, Miami, Asia, and Europe.

After reading about it in American Airlines' AmericanWay magazine last month, we made our way downtown on a blustery Saturday afternoon to see it. The human eye doesn't quite piece it all together the way a camera lens does, which is pretty interesting.

It was such a smart and appropriate idea for artist Michael Kalish to use speed bags. I imagine Yolanda Ali (who commissioned the piece along with her husband, "The Greatest") was impressed too.

reALIze is on display until April 9. Free to the public. Nokia Plaza, L.A. Live.

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: the BEAT