Danke began collaborating with his brother Tobias when he first graduated from art school in Berlin at the end of the 1990s. It was their conversation, often carried on when they were caught between different cities, which sharpened his interest in "absent physical presence". While the brothers created sculptural installations, Danke began to develop his own distinctive collages and sculpture where a supercharged version of classic surrealism and fashion marketing collide.

Some of Danke's works from 2005 include witty homages to works of canonical surrealists including restaging Man Ray's photo Kiki with African Mask, so that his own face takes the place of the sleeping woman's. In place of Hans Bellmer's life-size sexually twisted dolls, his Bellmer Box filled a plywood box with shop mannequin legs clothed in stripy tights. He's also had a couch upholstered in rainbow hues, supposedly depicting his own aura, in a nod to the American surrealist sculptor and set designer Dorothea Tanning and recalling the bizarre regions of "aura photography".

In 2008 Danke took part in a one off project between Glasgow Print Studio and Sorcha Dallas.