On Thursday night as I walked through the Ropewalks area, Liverpool felt very cool and, well, very unlike Liverpool. Since I was last there the area has increased its quota of boutique hotels, gig venues, bars and street art. Young people were drinking in moderation in the streets as they queued for Sound City events and a fleet of tour buses added to the anticipation. A party getting started in a vast indoor car-park made me feel as though I was walking through Berlin or Budapest as I made my way to Wolstenholme Creative Space (WCS) for Spectrum part II.

This experience made me realise that curating contemporary art does not only require consideration of the space, architecture and venue brand, but also requires an understanding of the wider context; what is happening in the surrounding locality, what else is on offer and what city-wide programming an exhibition can link into. The artists selected this week could not have been more different from the first week. In Spectrum part II the curators were able to introduce a more subversive, sexy, dark, silly and generally extreme sensibility. In particular, the work of Tony Knox and Roly Carline work benefited from the heady, anything-goes atmosphere in the Ropewalks.

The first room was given over to an installation by long-time Liverpool scenester Tony Knox aka 'Mothman'. Knox's presentation (various pieces of existing work - chosen by the three Spectrum curators) was essentially a set for his performance, to take place the following evening as part of Light Night. Knox's work explores wrestling and the iconography of cartoon characters, and his Mothman alter ego could be either a wrestler or a graphic novel anti-hero. His work felt a bit lost without him performing in it but I really liked the video projected onto a miniature boxing ring (pictured).

Roly Carline's film I grew up in the 90s and I loved it, involved: egg box pecs, two men in fake moustaches arguing in the bath, Peter Andre giving singing lessons, Vanilla Ice and Shaggy, a lot of papier-mâché and ambitious choreography. The sum of these parts created an artwork that reminded me of artists Ryan Trecartin and Paul McCarthy, the film Trash Humpers and the TV creations Bo Selecta and Beavis and Butthead. It was repulsive but oddly compelling.

At the back of WCS, filled with pink light and full of mysterious assemblages was the installation For Sale: baby shoes, never worn by Michael Aitken. Following on from Emily Speed's literature-inspired artwork in the first week, this title is a six-word short story by Ernest Hemingway. Aitken's work usually seems like a search for identity and happiness, started in adolescence and doomed to failure. This piece maintains his penchant for visual clues, but seems to be hiding its meaning (if one even exists) even more deeply than usual.

The last two rooms were very different in tone to the rest of the exhibition although there was still a dark undercurrent. The figures and scenarios in Rhonda Davies prints and drawings are familiar yet strange, innocent yet sexy and each one was a visual treat. In the final room there was a single image by Adriana Galuppo. Imagem da Besta (translated as 'Image of the Beast') exposes the use of propaganda in São Paulo, Brazil, where ordinary people are preached to via road-side billboards. The space around the photograph grounded it in an urban context and also allowed time for the frightening Orwellian significance of the image to sink in.

This was another very good exhibition, showcasing a diverse bunch of practitioners and some memorable works. There have been loads of great events lately that have helped to assert Liverpool's status as a cultural destination for families; but it is good that we also have artist-led venues taking risks and providing a platform for edgy contemporary art. All that remains to be seen is whether the team at WCS can maintain this quality for the final instalment of Spectrum, opening 24 May at 6pm.

On Thursday I went to my first Liverpool Art Month event: the Spectrum exhibition at Wolstenholme Creative Space (WCS). Spectrum offers a snapshot of the Liverpool artistic community. The artists in this show are five of a total of fifteen who will exhibit over three weeks in this artist-led, offbeat gallery, studio space and gig venue in the city centre.

Michael Aitken, one part of the curatorial trio responsible for Spectrum says that the aim was to showcase artists from the studio alongside other interesting practitioners. There isn't an overt 'theme' for each week; instead the artists have been chosen to demonstrate the diversity of the city's creative output. However, to me, two distinct ideas emerge from the first presentation: interactivity and fragility - and some of the artists demonstrate both.

In the first room (where many congregated at the well-attended opening) Emily Speed's Portable Reading Room (Box Man) scoots across the floor; entertaining, and sometimes containing, various assembled adults and children. Thursday night was not conducive to reading, but if you visit the show in a quiet moment you can sit in the 'reading room' with some books that offer an insight into Emily's concerns - these include architecture and space and the novel Box Man by Kobe Abe, which gives this piece its title. Emily has shown in some of the North of England's key venues over the last 18 months but despite this success her DIY approach endures.

Continuing the interactive theme is WCS studio member Jason Haynes. Jason says that his work explores 'alternative raw connections between the human body and its creative environment.' To do this he has presented an anatomical drawing rendered in wooden relief, which visitors are invited to remove their shoes and walk on, and a series of street-art inspired images and photographs. Even if Jason does not manage to convincingly achieve his stated intentions for this series, they do re-interpret 'drawing' in a way that is 3D, participatory, playful and distinctive.

At the back, tucked away, and seeming very much like the HQ of a radical movement, is the work The Empire is Revolting by Penny Whitehead and Dan Simpkins. For this the duo has combined an underground aesthetic with a 21st century strategy; visitors are photographed in the installation and then upload these images to their facebook and twitter accounts with the aim of disseminating the Latin American name of the Falkland Islands. It is a simple and neatly executed idea that offers a way in to a complicated event from recent history. The only possible risk is how easily viral campaigns can lose their message (see the Joseph Kone / Jason Russell debacle).

The last two artists are Jo Hicks and Kevin Hunt. Jo's body of work explores the idea of flight; confirming her skills as a communicator as well as a printmaker. A nice twist is that her prints have been linked to the architecture using beams of colour painted directly onto the walls. Kevin's barely-there sculptural pieces end the show on a reflective note, somehow managing to contain within these fragile forms an essay in balance, negative space, structure and material.

The title for this show (defined as: a broad range of conditions or behaviours grouped together and studied under a single title for ease of discussion) is very appropriate. You really have to come to the Thursday night opening events to catch these fleeting shows and join in the conversation, although WCS is open 12-4pm Friday-Sunday each week, too. Look out for my reviews, which will be following each opening.

I WENT to a talk by John Moores Painting Prize 2010 finalist Nick Fox on Friday, in front of his painting Metatopia, which he has donated to the gallery.

It was really interesting to hear about his work - both the theories behind it and also the method of creating it by building up layers of paint, which he describes as akin to print making. He paints on glass so that the first marks he makes become the surface of the finished work. Once completed and dry, Fox peels it off - "it becomes like a floppy pancake" and places it on to a piece of Victorian furniture or, in the case of Metatopia, a circular disc because "it was about not reading it as a painting, about another sort of space".

His work is inspired by nostalgia so it makes sense that he has donated this work to the Walker Art Gallery, which he has such fond memories of from his time as a student in Liverpool. But he also sees his donation as a gift to the city - or as he puts it "a love letter to Liverpool".

WATCHING the rain out of the window again, I am kept from working on my garden for another day. Being forced indoors has; however, made me think about the concept and meaning of gardens, and how their meaning is explored in contemporary art. For my first post for this blog, I am going to muse a bit on this relationship and how it will be represented at the Liverpool Biennial later this year.

Back in June 2011, I met Apolonija Šušteršič (pronounced apple-ony-a shoshtershay) when I was visiting her home town of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Our group was lucky to catch her there as Šušteršič's international practise takes her all over the world. We caught up with her in a community garden that she initiated for one neighbourhood in Ljubljana. The garden occupied a former wasteland space, in a city where land is cheap and abundant, but the pace of rejuvenating run-down areas is slow - reminding me a bit of the situation here in Liverpool. (Interestingly, we were visiting at a time when Maribor - the country's second city - was preparing for 2012 when it would be given European Capital of Culture status.) Around 30 people participate in the care - and reap the rewards - of Šušteršič's garden, which is surrounded by high-rise flats. Each family or individual has their own raised bed and everyone shares in the hard work required to keep the rocky ground hydrated.

LIVERPOOL City Council and Tate Liverpool have launched a new photography competition...

The Liverpool Parks Friends Forum - a forum for all the Friends of Parks groups in the city - stages the annual competition which shows the best of Liverpool's 70-plus parks, gardens, recreation grounds, playgrounds and nature reserves.

This year to celebrate the major summer exhibition at Tate Liverpool -Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings.(June 22 to October 28) - there are three special categories in the competition, inspired by the exhibition: ark Landscapes - 'My favourite view', People and Parks, Flora and Fauna - park plants or wildlife.

ARTIST Mark Greenwood is providing an alternative to the Grand National at Camp and Furnace this weekend.

Lad Broke is a a 48-hour durational, performance work - the final one of his PhD at Kingston University - and looks at issues around gambling, chance, habitual behaviour and the betting shop as a social gathering place. It's been organised by Mercy and is aimed to appeal to artists and the general public. There is a gathering at the space 5.30-7pm at Friday and the work will be available for viewing throughout the 48 hours.

A FEW visual arts events coming up in Merseyside that you might want to get involved in:

The Liverpool Art Fair

Showcasing a wide range of affordable original art by 50-plus local artists, including a section of specially created work under £100, the Liverpool Art Fair aims to provide a unique insight into the region's creative talent. Whether seasoned collector or first time art buyer, the fair will give everyone the opportunity to own their own piece of the Liverpool art world.

TURNER Prize winner Martin Creed made a surprise visit to Tate Liverpool last week to oversee the installation of his Artist Rooms show. The exhibition, in the ground floor Wolfson Gallery, opened to the public last Friday.

Creed has seven works on display, including the neon installation, Work No. 890 (Don't Worry) 2008, a 21-part drawing, Work No. 944 2008, and a recent series of four paintings from 2011.

Here he is at Tate Liverpool:

SOME more pictures that missed the Post Culture deadline but which I can't resist sharing. These ones are by Post photographer Gareth Jones and show the curators installing the Van Gogh and Gauguin self-portraits at the Lady Lever gallery...

ONE of our photographers, Andy Teebay, took these beautiful photographs of Robyn Woolston's art work for the Threshold Festival. Unfortunately it was too late to run them in this week's Post Culture so here they are for your enjoyment instead: