Technopreneur Metakovan opens Singapore gallery Padimai

Singapore-based technopreneur Vignesh Sundaresan once chased records and shelled out an eye watering US$69 million (S$90 million) for American artist Beeple's non-fungible token (NFT) Everydays: The First 5,000 Days at a Christie's auction in 2021, then the most expensive digital artwork sold.

- Shawn Hoo

Now, the Chennai-born investor — known by his online name Metakovan - has disavowed the showboating and instead advocates for a digital commons and creative sovereignty.

Launching Padimai Art & Tech Studio at Tanjong Pagar Distripark on Nov 20, the 38-year-old confesses: “The way I saw cryptocurrency was very techno-futuristic and hyper-capitalistic. I was coming from this euphoric era of NFTs.”

The NFT art market has cooled since 2021. Mr Sundaresan, who has not bought an NFT work from the market since his Beeple purchase, has pivoted to commissioning artists, working with them on the technology through his expertise as a coder.

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s virtual reality (VR) NFT work Your View Matter (2022/ 2025) is the first commission on show at Padimai till March 31.

The choice of Eliasson, 58, is apt as Mr Sundaresan has him to thank for deconstructing his beliefs when they met in 2021, soon after Mr Sundaresan made headlines.

Mr Sundaresan had offered him a tour of his land in the metaverse, to which the artist posed a simple question: “If the virtual world has infinite space, why is it following such an old economic idea?”