By COREY KILGANNON

The man in the hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants was not recognizable, but the three letters he was rendering as a 5-meter mural on the wall of a Hell’s Kitchen building certainly were: B.N.E.

This mischievous monogram, posted by marker, spray can, roller and especially stickers, has become part of the landscape of New York and cities worldwide, thrilling graffiti admirers and roiling public officials. Its saturation has provoked one of the more enduring Internet mysteries: What and who is B.N.E.?

In what he said was his first interview with a journalist, the man said he was responsible for this three-lettered puzzle, but refused to divulge his name, age or many details about his background and method, for fear of arrest. He also refused to have his face photographed or to say what B.N.E. stands for. His initials, perhaps?

“Let’s just say it has a meaning that’s personal to me,” he said, acknowledging the conjecture online: Breaking and Entering, Bomb Nuclear Explosion. “At this point, it means whatever you need it to mean.”

The stickers are affixed to mailboxes, phone booths, signs, walls, parking meters and streetlights, mostly in New York and Japan, but also in Bangkok, Prague, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur. He goes through 10,000 stickers a month.

In relentlessly spreading his tag, B.N.E. follows graffiti writers with nicknames like Taki, Revs and Cost. The idea is to leave one’s mark in as many places as possible, in wry, brash and mischievous ways - a process known as “getting up.”

One recent weekend, B.N.E. was not spray-painting surreptitiously, but creating a sanctioned mural on a concrete wall in a temporarily vacant building . It is part of an exhibition of his work that opened December 10, sponsored by Mother, a Manhattan advertising agency.

“B.N.E. has single-handedly created a globally recognized and valued brand in the new social economy,” Mother officials said in a news release.

But Peter F. Vallone Jr., of Queens, chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, condemned the show. “This isn’t even someone who’s decided to go legitimate,” he said. “This is an unrepentant criminal who has cost honest taxpayers a lot of money, and he’s profited from it.”


The graffiti artist B.N.E., whose identity is unknown, is staging an exhibition sponsored by an advertising agency. / JOSHUA BRIGHT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES