Rakajoo French, b. 1986

Following the success of his exhibition "Les Trois Châteaux" presented at Danysz Paris, Baye Dam Cissé, alias Rakajoo, named by Télérama "The Toulouse-Lautrec of Château Rouge [A Parisian District]" in 2021, takes over the Danysz Shanghai with "City of Lights" his first solo exhibition in China. Inspired by the image of the City of Lights drawn up before him by the masters of modern art such as Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec, to whom he pays a penetrating tribute, the parisian artist paints an intimate portrait of his city. The exhibition “City of Lights” postulates that Rakajoo, is indeed part of an artistic filiation with these major artists of modernity. The self-taught artist invites us to dive into the heart of the French capital and unveils new works representing an ode to the City of Lights, which sparkles with a thousand colors of light.

Danysz Gallery is pleased to present an online exhibition devoted to portraits. As the exhibition title suggests, the exhibition’s main preoccupations are the meaning, the ideology and the subversive power of portraits. What is the role of portraits now, in an image-saturated world, when selfies on social media took over the popular imagination?

'This is why I use a large focal: a perspective that grabs us into the heart of the paintings. (...) It’s a way of capturing the gaze of the viewers...