The Feminist

When the Public Functionary gallery was launched four years ago, what set it apart was its daunting Obama-era mission: Marry the aesthetic with the civic, and make the gallery a site of community engagement, cultural pluralism and grown-up dialogue. In other words, enjoy the art — but you’re gonna have to eat your vegetables, too. This weekend PF puts its money where its multi-culti mouth is with this solo exhibition by D.C.-based Haitian-American artist Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre. The work is bright and airy: mixed-media pieces feathered together with a watercolorist’s lightness of touch. But the context is discursive: heavy tangles of race, gender, privilege and power. Friday’s opening serves as a preamble for a mini-summit on contemporary feminism the following afternoon with the artist, curator Jovan Speller, anthropologist Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara and poet Malanda Jean-Claude discussing social and political patriarchy. Intersectionalists, take note. (Opening reception 7 p.m.-midnight Fri. Artist talk 1 p.m. Sat. Public Functionary, 1400 12th Av. NE., publicfunctionary.org)

GREGORY J. SCOTT